PA DEMS CLOSING ABORTION ARGUMENT — BUCKS COUNTY, Pennsylvania — Pennsylvania Democrats are making their final pitch to suburban voters to clinch power in the state legislature: Vote for them to protect reproductive rights, POLITICO’s Liz Crampton reports. Why it matters: While Democrats are running on abortion throughout the country, Pennsylvania is the only state with a divided Legislature, underscoring its status as a coveted battleground. Democrats are targeting suburban women outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh as the linchpin of their coalition for holding the state House and gaining seats in the Senate. Their argument rests on being the backstop against Republican attempts to tighten Pennsylvania’s abortion laws, which allow the procedure up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. But those relatively robust protections could undermine the issue’s urgency. “In Pennsylvania, it’s not like Tennessee,” said Anna Thomas, a Democratic challenger in a competitive House district held by a Republican in the Lehigh Valley. “It’s not like that many people know someone who has had to leave the state to get medical care. Making sure they understand the risk is a huge part of what we have to do to get out the vote.” Democrats are confident that — as in 2022, when they flipped the state House — the post-election autopsies will credit abortion as the reason they won on Election Day. Republicans are largely ignoring abortion and centering their campaigns on fixing the economy and combating illegal immigration, potentially dampening the salience of abortion as the main reason people head to the polls. GOP strategist Mark Harris said it’s inaccurate for Democrats to portray Republicans as wanting to send Pennsylvanians “back to the dark ages.” “Democrats are absolutely mischaracterizing the vast majority of Republicans’ position on this issue,” he said, emphasizing that most support the state’s current law and have no interest in changing it. What to watch: As the distance from Dobbs increases, there are questions about whether Democrats can summon the same political energy around protecting abortion access. They’ll also have to overcome a presidential election that has caused intense election fatigue among Pennsylvanians — underscoring the struggle for candidates to convince voters to care about this level of the ballot. HARRIS’ FINAL PITCH — In her closing argument to voters Tuesday evening, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris touted her Medicare home care plan and support for abortion rights in a sweeping address that highlighted several of her marquee health policies. “If you need home care and you don’t have some money to hire someone, you and your family need to deplete your savings to qualify for help. That’s just not right,” Harris said on the National Mall. “So we’re going to change the approach and allow Medicare to cover the cost of home care,” she added, pointing to a proposal she laid out earlier this month, which would help families afford the cost of caring for older adults at home instead of in a health care setting. She also leaned into a Biden administration proposal to expand insulin costs and out-of-pocket caps under Medicare to the commercial market. “I will enact the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on groceries, cap the price of insulin and limit out-of-pocket prescription costs for all Americans,” Harris said. She also reiterated her messaging on abortion rights, criticizing [former President Donald] “Trump abortion bans,” particularly those with no exceptions for rape or incest. “[Trump] would ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to birth control and put [in vitro ferilization] treatments at risk and force states to monitor women’s pregnancies,” she said.
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