PHOENIX— Kamala Harris is making a bet in the final days of a deadlocked election campaign that turning out women voters is her best path to the presidency.
In a race that has been defined by gender politics , getting women to the polls is a crucial task for Harris. The Democratic vice president, who remains neck-and-neck with Republican former President Donald Trump , has made abortion rights and the importance of giving women freedom over their bodies a central part of her final message. She has stressed Trump’s role appointing three justices to the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, and seized on Trump’s recent remark that he would “protect” women .
Helping Harris is Michelle Obama , who is typically a reluctant campaigner. Last week the former first lady delivered a blistering address in Michigan in which she graphically detailed how limits to reproductive healthcare affect women’s bodies, and she made a plea to men to “take our lives seriously.”
Obama continued to make her case Saturday in Pennsylvania, following up on a get-out-the-vote rally this week focused on young people. She told the crowd in Norristown that with Harris “instead of someone who’d accelerate the dismantling of our women’s reproductive health system, we will have a president who believes in our freedom to make decisions about our own bodies.”
To cheers, Obama also argued that the election was fundamentally about “reclaiming the mantle of who belongs in this nation,” condemning what she said was the coarse and derogatory language that has defined Trump’s campaign.
Harris, for her part, spent Saturday rallying voters in Charlotte and Atlanta. First lady Jill Biden and other surrogates such as Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were also working to get out the vote.
A Harris adviser said that if she wins, it will be attributable to a large turnout among women—especially younger, college educated and suburban women—and limiting the losses among men. The Harris camp says it has managed to shift some Trump-supporting women by detailing his past statements on abortion. In 2016, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton beat Trump among women voters by 15 percentage points, according to Pew Research Center .
Since the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 , women have turned out in midterms, special elections and for ballot referendums on abortion to power Democratic victories. Both parties are now scouring polls and data about people who have already voted for any signs of supercharged turnout among women.
National and swing-state polls have shown Trump enjoying a strong advantage with men, but struggling to land a winning message with women. He has run a campaign featuring a hypermasculine message, at times defined by coarse and sexist language .
Trump has tried to moderate his stance on abortion, saying he wouldn’t support a national ban. He recently offered a tax break for people who take care of a parent or loved one, after Harris rolled out a plan to have Medicare cover in-home healthcare.
The former president has also argued that women’s safety is under threat, promising to protect them. In Wisconsin this week, Trump said his advisers had told him to stop casting himself as a protector of women. “I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not,’” said Trump. “I’m going to protect them.”
Democrats and Harris highlighted those remarks, with the vice president declaring in Phoenix: “There’s a saying that you gotta listen to people when they tell you who you are or who they are. And this is not the first time he has told us he does not believe women should have the agency and authority to make decisions about their own bodies.”
“We trust women,” said Harris to cheers.
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt asked “Why does Kamala Harris take issue with President Trump wanting to protect women, men, and children from migrant crime and foreign adversaries?”
Trump’s campaign has also pushed back by highlighting a comment from Harris-supporting billionaire Mark Cuban , who said that Trump doesn’t surround himself with smart women. Some of Trump’s female advisers promptly shared photos of themselves with the former president on social media.
Trump also drew attention this week when he said would have Robert F. Kennedy Jr . “work on health and women’s health.” Harris responded to the suggestion with a one-word social-media post: “No.” Kennedy—who endorsed Trump after ending an independent bid for president—has questioned the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccine and other government-endorsed vaccines. Kennedy has expressed conflicting views on abortion access.
Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said the campaign is focused on winning the election, but said Trump had made clear Kennedy would play an important role. A campaign official also said that the abortion issue would be left to the states.
On Thursday, Trump went after former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney , a critic of the former president who has endorsed Harris, during an interview with Tucker Carlson . “She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump said, suggesting Cheney should be sent into battle. “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Trump has a long history of making crude and disparaging remarks about women. In 2023, a federal jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store 30 years ago. He denied the charges.
Galvanize Action, a nonprofit focused on moderate women, since the spring has been tracking a group of more than 6,000 moderate white women in 10 states, including the seven battleground states. Jackie Payne, the group’s founder, said that they have moved slightly toward Harris.
Payne said those voters put priority on the economy, democracy, reproductive rights and immigration. They give Trump an edge on the economy and immigration and Harris an advantage on democracy and reproductive rights. “They view it as a freedom and they connect it to healthcare writ large,” she said of abortion.
Over the course of the presidential race, women campaigning for Democrats have come forward with harrowing stories of pregnancy complications and healthcare struggles, speaking in detail about miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and fertility care in a way that was once unheard of in public life.
A recent ad featured a Texas woman who couldn’t receive an abortion during a miscarriage and developed a life-threatening infection. She shows a scar on her abdomen from an emergency surgery, and the ad states she might never be able to have children.
Obama gave voice to those experiences in Kalamazoo, saying: “If your wife is shivering and bleeding on the operating room table during a routine delivery gone bad, her pressure dropping as she loses more and more blood or some unforeseen infection spreads, and her doctors aren’t sure if they can act, you will be the one praying that it’s not too late.”
Delaney Tunstall, 21 years old, of Scottsdale, Ariz., said abortion was an important reason she was backing Harris. The Arizona State University student said she had an abortion in May 2022—before the Dobbs decision—and that if she hadn’t had the option “it would have had a drastic impact on my life.”
Obama’s comments haven’t gone unnoticed by Trump, who called her “nasty.”
One challenge for Harris is that some women in battleground states who support abortion rights say they plan to support Trump. A recent Wall Street Journal national poll found that 33% of Trump voters say they want abortion to be legal with some or no restrictions, compared with 62% who want it to be illegal with some or no exceptions. A total of 92% of Harris voters support legal abortion some or all of the time, while 6% say it should be illegal.
Jillian Glasser, 61, of Lower Gwynedd, Pa., has already voted for Trump. She said she thought abortion should be safe and legal, but “I just don’t think Pennsylvania is going to overturn it.” Of Trump, the retiree said: “I think we have to take him at his word. I really don’t think he is going to do anything dramatic.”
Write to Catherine Lucey at catherine_lucey@wsj.com
