POLITICO
Donald Trump is warning the country will end up like Detroit if Kamala Harris is elected.
Now, Harris is cautioning that if voters put him in office, it’ll look like Texas instead.
It’s an argument the vice president will make on Friday as she steps off the swing-state campaign trail to rally supporters in deep-red Texas, a focal point not only for the abortion-rights fight, but for the kinds of conservative policies Harris and other Democrats warn could spread across the country if Trump returns to the White House.
In essence, she’s moving to turn Texas, a lodestar of Republican politics, into a foil.
“If we don’t stop Donald Trump now, we’re going to have 50 Texases,” said Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, who will attend the Friday rally in Houston. “The tip of the spear of the crisis is Texas.”
The trip comes as part of Harris’ push in the final week of the campaign to court moderate Republican voters — including suburban women, a crucial demographic — who may dislike Trump but are hesitant to vote for a Democrat. And she’s leaning on issues like abortion and democracy to persuade them.
And beyond the campaign message, the event itself — a star-studded affair featuring Houston native Beyoncé — will give Harris a chance to return to her sweet spot: A major rally in front of thousands of fans, reminiscent of her 2019 presidential campaign rollout in Oakland before an estimated 20,000 people.
At her rally, Harris is expected to zero in on abortion rights by highlighting the impact that Trump’s appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices key to overturning Roe v. Wade has had on reproductive health care, including in deeply red states like Texas. The state, which Donald Trump is almost certain to win, is not part of her campaign’s path to 270 electoral votes. But it is a place where the effects from that ruling have resonated deeply — and are also deeply unpopular. A recent poll from the Texas Politics Project found that 54 percent of likely voters in Texas think Harris would do a better job on abortion, compared to 28 percent who said the same about Trump.
“Texas is not just a good showcase for how restrictive policies can get on abortion when you leave it to the states, but also the degree to which that kind of restrictive approach gets in front of — and does not align with — public opinion, including public opinion with a sizable share of Republicans,” said Jim Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project and co-directs the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. “[Houston is] the biggest city in a state where even Republicans think that leaving it to the state produced a pretty bad result.”
Texas has what are arguably the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, banning abortion starting at conception, with violations punishable by up to 99 years in prison and a fine of at least $100,000. The law contains no exceptions for rape or incest — and women in the state have been denied abortions in life-threatening situations despite an exception in state law that allows doctors to provide the procedure if necessary to save a mother’s life.
The Harris campaign views Texas’ policies as a way to focus voters on one of their most salient issues in the final days, and more importantly to capture the news cycle.
