By Reuters

September 25, 20241:18 AM GMT+6Updated 2 hours ago

Sept 24 (Reuters) – Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee in November’s presidential election, on Tuesday said she backed ending a procedural tool that currently requires a supermajority in the Senate to pass legislation to protect the right to an abortion nationally.

Since a 2022 Supreme Court decision overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion, about a dozen U.S. states have passed laws banning or severely limiting abortion rights, which has become a key issue in the 2024 election.

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Harris wants Congress to pass a national law codifying access to a safe abortion.

The support of 60 senators is required to pass most legislation in the upper chamber at present. On Tuesday, Harris said in an interview that she wants to lower the threshold to a simple majority.

“We should eliminate the filibuster for Roe… to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom, and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body,” she told Wisconsin Public Radio.

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Democrats removed the filibuster in 2013 on judicial nominees and Republicans went further in 2017 to include Supreme Court nominees.

Some Democrats have called for getting rid of the 60-vote requirement entirely, but have yet to do so, partly due to opposition from centrist senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who will not return to the Senate next year.00:0700:43

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Reporting by Costas Pitas Editing by Bill Berkrot

By David Wright and Fredreka Schouten, CNN

 5 minute read 

Updated 3:56 PM EDT, Sat September 21, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event in Atlanta on September 20, 2024. Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesCNN — 

Kamala Harris entered September – and the closing weeks of the presidential campaign – with significantly more available campaign cash than Donald Trump, new federal filings show, after setting a grassroots fundraising record during her first full month as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Fundraising by the national Democratic committees focused on the battle for Congress also surged – with the party arm working to turn the US House blue collecting more than double the amount raised by its Republican counterpart in August. The House GOP campaign arm, however, reported a six-figure donation from billionaire Elon Musk last month as the party seeks to defend its razor-thin majority in the chamber.

And with Democrats riding a wave of donor enthusiasm, the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission also showed some key outside groups ramping up their activity, while a leading pro-Trump super PAC unleashed a massive wave of independent expenditures to help Republicans close the gap.

Harris’ surge

Harris has fully erased the financial edge that Trump momentarily gained over the summer, when the former president outraised President Joe Biden in two of the final three months before Biden withdrew from the race in late July. The vice president took in nearly $190 million directly to her campaign in August – more than quadrupling the $44.5 million that the Trump campaign said flowed to its principal campaign account that month.

The Harris campaign also dramatically outspent the Trump campaign in August, burning through about $174 million. It plowed most of that into advertising – $135 million – as it raced to introduce Democrats’ newly minted nominee to voters on an abbreviated schedule. Some $6.4 million went toward payroll expenses and $4.5 million to text-messaging outreach.

Related articleExclusive: Harris campaign launching new ad seeking to tie Trump to Mark Robinson

By comparison, Trump’s campaign spent just $61 million last month, with the lion’s share – more than $47 million – going toward media buys.

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Despite the spending spree, Harris’ main campaign account entered September with $235 million in available cash, far surpassing the $135 million remaining in Trump’s coffers, the latest FEC records show.

The late Friday night filings offer just one snapshot of candidates’ financial strengths.

The Trump and Harris campaigns are aligned with an array of committees that file disclosure reports on a separate schedule. Harris’ broader network announced it had raised a combined total of $361 million in August, nearly triple the $130 million Trump’s operation said it brought in.

Harris’ fundraising dominance has helped give Democrats a significant edge in advertising bookings this fall, including in key battleground states. And the vice president and her allies are overwhelming the former president’s presence on social media. Democrats have spent $137 million across digital platforms since Harris effectively became the party’s standard-bearer in late July – more than triple Republicans’ spending, a CNN analysis of data compiled by the ad-tracking firm AdImpact shows.

Party power

Friday’s campaign reports show that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – the party arm engaged in House races – significantly outraised its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Campaign Committee, $22.3 million to $9.7 million.

The DCCC also entered September with more cash on hand, $87.3 million to $70.8 million for the NRCC, funds that could be pivotal in a highly competitive battle for the House, where Republicans are defending a narrow majority.

One of the notable donors seeking to help House Republicans stem the Democratic tide of cash: billionaire Elon Musk, who records show gave the House GOP campaign arm $289,100 in August, the largest federal donation disclosed by Musk so far this cycle as he steps up his Republican giving.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, top row, second from right, is seen during a joint meeting of Congress at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on July 24, 2024. Kevin Mohatt/Reuters/File

Related articleHow Elon Musk has turned X into a pro-Trump machine

The tech magnate – the world’ richest person – endorsed Trump in July. And in another indication of his growing political influence, a super PAC Musk helped form recently ramped up its activity in the presidential contest, spending more than $40 million since mid-August. That includes more than $22 million on canvassing efforts on Trump’s behalf, helping to fill in a critical role. The Trump campaign, as CNN has previously reported, has opted to outsource much of its ground game operation to outside organizations.

Party committees focused on Senate races raised comparable amounts last month.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee brought in $19.1 million and its Democratic counterpart, $19.2 million. Each spent more than it raised, with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spending $31.6 million and the NRSC, $26.5 million.

Democrats narrowly control the chamber but face an unfavorable landscape this year as they defend several seats in states that have previously backed Trump.

Outside groups

Harris’ fundraising prowess has put pressure on a network of outside groups supporting the former president to help close the money gap.

MAGA Inc., a leading pro-Trump super PAC, spent more than $88 million in August alone on independent expenditures on behalf of the former president’s campaign, funding a blitz of TV advertising, according to its monthly filing. That’s more than MAGA Inc. has spent in any month this year and roughly twice as much as it spent in July.

The super PAC received a total of $25 million last month from a range of wealthy supporters, including $10 million from Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks and $5 million from billionaire financier Paul Singer. It ended August with $59.4 million in cash on hand.

On the Democratic side, FF PAC, a leading pro-Harris super PAC, reported raising nearly $37 million last month, with $3 million coming from Facebook co-founder and billionaire investor Dustin Moskovitz – by far his largest federal donation of the election cycle. The super PAC spent more than $77 million in August, including nearly $62 million on independent expenditures to benefit the vice president’s campaign.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to accurately reflect Dustin Moskovitz’s August contribution to FF PAC.

ATLANTA (AP) — Kamala Harris blasted Donald Trump as a threat to women’s freedoms and their very lives, warning in a speech in the battleground state of Georgia on Friday that Republicans would continue to choke off access to abortion if he returns to the White House.

The Democratic vice president’s visit came days after ProPublica reported that two women in the state died after they did not get proper medical treatment for complications from taking abortion pills to end their pregnancies.

Such deaths, Harris said, were not only preventable but predictable because of laws that have been implemented since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Although Georgia’s six-week ban allows abortions in early pregnancy to save a mother’s life, critics say the law has created dangerous confusion for doctors about when they’re allowed to provide care.

“Good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying a healthcare provider will only start providing that care when you’re about to die?” Harris asked.

Harris shared the story of Amber Thurman, a mother who decided to have an abortion when she became pregnant again.

“She had her future all planned out,” Harris said. “And it was her plan. What she wanted to do for herself, for her son, for their future.”

However, Thurman waited more than 20 hours at the hospital for a routine medical procedure known as a D&C to clear out remaining tissue after taking abortion pills. She developed sepsis and died.

“She was loved,” Harris said. “And she should be alive today.”

Harris has been outspoken on abortion rights ever since the Supreme Court’s decision more than two years ago, but Friday’s speech in Atlanta was her first focused squarely on the issue since replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Harris heard Thursday night from Thurman’s mother and sisters.

During a livestreamed campaign event hosted by Oprah Winfrey and attended by Harris, Shanette Williams, Thurman’s mother, tearfully told viewers that “people around the world need to know that this was preventable.” Williams said she initially did not want to go public about her daughter’s 2022 death but ultimately decided it was important for people to understand her daughter “was not a statistic. She was loved.”

Harris told the family: “I’m just so sorry. The courage you all have shown is extraordinary.”

She spoke about Thurman at a second rally Friday, before a thunderous crowd of thousands in the swing state of Wisconsin. Speaking in the Democratic stronghold and state capital, Madison, she called the bans put in place in more than 20 states “immoral” and warned against another Trump term.

“We are not going back,” Harris said.

Trump has repeatedly said he was proud to help overturn Roe v. Wade by appointing conservative justices during his term in office. He’s also said he supports exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said that since Georgia has such exceptions in place, “it’s unclear why doctors did not swiftly act to protect the lives of mothers.”

Anti-abortion advocates and doctors argued Friday that the women’s deaths raise questions around the safety of taking abortion pills at home without management by a doctor. Advocates have been pushing for tougher restrictions on the pills for years, most recently at the U.S. Supreme Court in a failed attempt to limit availability.

“Women think that it’s completely safe for them to go online and order these drugs,” Christina Francis, a Fort Wayne, Indiana, OB-GYN who opposes abortion, told reporters Friday.

Since 2000, the FDA has approved a two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol as a safe way to end pregnancies through 10 weeks gestation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA eliminated an in-person visit requirement to get the drugs. Reported complications have been rare and surgical intervention to end the pregnancy is needed in 2.6% of cases.

Dozens of pregnant patients have faced delayed care or been turned away from hospitals amid medical emergencies over the last two years, a violation of federal law, since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Violations occurred in states with and without abortion bans. But an AP analysis earlier this year found an immediate spike in some states with abortion bans, including Texas, following the ruling.

Dr. Nisha Verma, an OB-GYN in Georgia, said the six-week ban has caused a “massive environment of fear and confusion and uncertainty” for the medical community.

She said Republican legislators who are now blaming hospitals and doctors are seeing the ramifications of the laws playing out in real time.

“The law is preventing us from being able to provide evidence-based care without having to think about the risk of criminal prosecution,” she said.

With in-person early voting starting Friday in three states — Virginia, South Dakota and Minnesota — Harris’ campaign is hoping that reproductive rights will be a strong motivator for Democrats. The party points to a series of electoral wins when abortion rights have been on the ballot, and advocates believe Harris is a strong messenger.

About half of voters say abortion is one of the most important issues as they consider their votes — but it’s more important to women who are registered voters than to male voters, according to a new AP-NORC poll. About 6 in 10 women voters say abortion policy is one of the most important issues to their vote in the upcoming election, compared to about 4 in 10 male voters.

The gender gap doesn’t stop there.

About 6 in 10 women voters trust Harris more than Trump to handle abortion, while about 2 in 10 women have more trust in Trump. Half of male voters trust Harris more than Trump on abortion, while about one-third trust Trump more than Harris.