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In 2016, Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency on an anti-abortion message, promising to appoint “pro-life” judges to the Supreme Court. In 2022, three of his nominees fulfilled that promise, voting to overturn Roe v. Wade and ending the constitutional right to an abortion.
But 28 months after that decision changed the landscape of reproductive rights in the U.S., Trump’s campaign strategy has largely avoided direct engagement with the abortion issue. It’s a calculated risk: Trump is betting on the idea that voters, particularly women, will prioritize issues like crime and economic stability over abortion.
That strategy was on display in the final days of the campaign in North Carolina, one of the battleground states that will likely decide the outcome of the election. “The suburban women are under attack,” Trump said in a speech there on Saturday. He didn’t mention the word “abortion” once in the 90-minute speech.
For some of the North Carolina women supporting Trump, the message resonated. “We're not single issue voters,” says Zeenath Abplanalp, a 48-year-old Republican woman who lives south of Charlotte. “We’re also buying groceries, paying for utilities, kids, extracurricular activities. When couples sit at night at the kitchen table, we're talking about which bills we can afford. Sometimes abortion is not the first topic we're talking about.”
Read More: What a Donald Trump Win Would Mean for Abortion
One of the key questions of this election cycle is how much the abortion debate will sway voters' choices for President. With more abortion-related ballot initiatives on the table than ever before in a single year, Vice President Kamala Harris has leaned heavily into the subject as she seeks to become the nation’s first woman President, using it as a rallying cry throughout her campaign. In stark contrast, Trump has largely sidestepped the issue, asserting that it should now be left to the states.
Some of his supporters in North Carolina say it won’t sway their votes towards Harris. “I don't think abortion is a major concern,” says Linda Jones, a 73-year-old Republican woman from South Charlotte. “I think it's way down the line behind the immigration, inflation, safety, crime, that sort of thing.”
She adds, “Women like security and safety, and Trump makes me feel secure and safe. I will feel so much safer when he’s in office.”
Trump is acutely aware of the importance of suburban women to win elections. The demographic played a crucial role in President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and helped propel Democratic candidates to success in the 2022 midterm elections. Trump won white women in both 2016 and 2020, yet polls consistently show him trailing Harris among women overall, presenting a daunting challenge as he seeks to reclaim the White House. A recent ABC News/Ipsos national poll showed Trump behind Harris among likely female voters by 14 points.
Trump has made several attempts at wooing female voters in recent weeks. On Saturday in North Carolina, he made an explicit race-baiting appeal: “I will protect women,” Trump told a crowd in Gastonia, referring to his plan to shut down the southern border and deport more than 11 million undocumented migrants. “If they don’t get me, they will have millions of people coming through the suburbs.” He then paused the rally to play a three-minute video of a woman’s harrowing account of her adolescent daughter being kidnapped and strangled to death by immigrants who entered the country illegally.
But his efforts to court female voters may be more rhetorical flourish than substantive outreach, particularly as his campaign has opted for male-dominated venues, aiming to galvanize “the bro vote” through engagements with right-wing influencers and male-centric shows.
Read More: Why Trump Thinks He Needs Young Men to Win
By eschewing direct engagement with the abortion debate, Trump risks alienating a significant segment of voters. He has tried to close his gap with women by focusing on the suburbs, believing that those living outside America’s largest cities, who broke from Republicans in the midterms two years ago, can be reeled back in with a blunt message on safety and security. But if Trump loses the election, his campaign strategy towards women voters will come under scrutiny.
The Trump campaign declined to comment for this story. The leaders of several local GOP offices in western North Carolina also declined to elaborate on how they are targeting women voters.
A Republican volunteer from Union County in western N.C., who has been knocking on doors for the Trump campaign but was not authorized to speak publicly, says it’s been more challenging to talk to young women voters about the abortion issue than men and older women. When speaking to undecided voters, she says her pitch typically revolves around immigration, economy, and crime—not abortion.
Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping the abortion-rights fight will continue to be a powerful mobilizing force for Democratic candidates. The Harris campaign has been targeting women under 35, especially in suburban areas, leveraging the growing discontent surrounding abortion access. An October KFF survey of women voters indicated that nearly four in ten women under 30 cite abortion as their top electoral concern.
Read More: What a Kamala Harris Win Would Mean for Abortion
North Carolina has a 12-week abortion ban in place after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. For many female voters, the issue of abortion has transformed from a distant concern into an urgent matter, particularly as they hear stories of women facing life-threatening complications without access to necessary medical care due to restrictive laws.
“I'm concerned for my daughter. I'm concerned for my nieces and the girls that are coming behind us and them having less rights than my grandmother and my mother's generation,” says Maria Thrasher, a 54-year-old small business owner from south of Charlotte who considers herself an independent voter and is supporting Harris this cycle.
Asked about the ground game strategy for appealing to women voters in North Carolina, a spokesperson for the state’s GOP organization noted that the state’s 12-week abortion ban “includes exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother” and “also provides additional funding for family healthcare services.”
“North Carolina Republicans have delivered on their promise of a family first agenda to provide economic opportunity, community safety, and quality education,” the spokesperson added.
The outcome of the presidential race may hinge on where swaths of women place abortion on their list of priorities when they cast their ballots. “All issues are women's issues,” Abplanalp says. “I feel that Trump talks to everybody. I don't like to be put in a box that these are female issues, these are male issues.”
“I think that the Dems actually did a disadvantage by putting all women in this one box of reproductive rights,” she adds. “I mean, let's just be honest, if the issue is abortion let the states make up the decision. We are fine in North Carolina. The everyday, average American is more concerned about the economy.”
Trump is betting on that sentiment as well.
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