MINNEAPOLIS — The newly minted Harris Campaign is already working to highlight the divide between Democrats and Republicans when in comes to abortion and other reproductive rights for women.
U.S. Senator Tina Smith led a large group of fellow female Democrat elected leaders and activists at the Minnesota State Capitol Friday, at an event co-sponsored by the Harris Campaign and Women Winning, a political organization that works to elect pro-choice women.
"With this election, the choice could not be more clear," Sen. Smith told reporters.
"Vice President Harris has been a tireless advocate for women's rights and reproductive freedom and we know we can trust her to stand with us!"
Smith said she worked alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in the U.S. Senate and trusts her to work to improve the lives of women and their families.
"We understand the freedom to make decisions about our own bodies and our own lives is fundamental to our liberty and our equality."
The group also took aim at Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who is former President Trump's running mate, for statements implying that women without children have no stake in the future of the country.
"We're effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choice they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too," Vance told FOX News' Tucker Carlson in a 2021 interview that is now being widely circulated.
"If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children."
Former Sen. Kelly Morrison of Deep Haven, a physician who is running for Congress in Minnesota's 3rd District, said there are many women who have not been able to conceive and others who have chosen not to have children.
"To mock them and to imply they are somehow less worthy in our country, is cruel. It's disgraceful!" Morrison asserted.
Most polls show that men in Minnesota heavily favored Trump in a head-to-head matchup with President Biden. Some analysts have said the election in Minnesota could be determined by how many white men turn out to vote in the suburbs.
That's one of the reasons the battle for women voters in Minnesota and other Midwestern battleground states will be so critical in 2024.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said former President Trump and Sen. Vance are trying to take the country back in time, to a place where women had fewer rights and less control of their bodies and their lives.
"Having women in leadership isn't just cosmetic. It's essential!" Flanagan told reporters.
Nevada Littlewolf of Women Winning pointed to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump term, which includes steps to impose a national ban on abortion. Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but his critics point out that many of the authors to the document are former members of the Trump Administration.
"Now is the time to show Donald Trump, JD Vance, and his gang of MAGA minions that we will not tolerate any more threats to our democracy, our community, or our rights to make decisions about our own bodies."
Republican response
Elected Republican women assert electing Donald Trump won't endanger women's access to abortion in Minnesota. They note the DFL majority in the legislature in 2023 and 2024 put abortion rights into state law, and those rights were already established in the Minnesota Supreme Court's 1995 Doe v. Gomez decision.
"That is not going to change here in Minnesota. We know that," Rep. Lisa Demuth, the House Minority Leader, told KARE 11.
"But, if we are going to talk about being pro-woman, and making sure women have what they need, we need to support women at phases of their life and everything they’re facing."
She said the definition of pro-women should be expanded to include pocketbook issues. She said the new sick and safe time law and the paid family leave system approved by the legislature will harm women who own businesses.
"Right now, we have high taxes, we have child care that is not accessible or available as people need. Women business owners specifically are facing mandates that were put on over the last two years by the full Democrat Trifecta."
Minnesota GOP Deputy Party Chair Donna Bergstrom said that Democrats can't win elections in this state running on the abortion issue alone.
"I think the Democrats at large and the DFL here in Minnesota really only have abortion to campaign on. Really that fear factor that they want to go after," Bergstrom told KARE.
"We need to get back to the basics in our communities. Inflation is killing us. Our families can't fill their gas tanks, put groceries on the table, meet their basic needs."
Bergstrom criticized Democrats for their efforts to link Project 2025 to Trump.
"It would sure be a lot easier if we didn’t have people elected to office, like Senator Smith, saying this is the Trump agenda because it’s not."