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10 Nov 2024 5:34
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  •   Home > News > International

    Donald Trump and Kamala Harris desperately want to win Arizona — and women could hold the key to victory

    Just weeks before the US election, polls suggest the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remains a dead heat. In the key battleground state of Arizona, abortion might be a deciding factor.


    Knocking on doors in the brutally hot Arizona desert in the name of reproductive rights isn't something Lesley Chavez could have imagined herself doing as a teenager.

    The now 27-year-old was raised in a religious, Hispanic household in the state's capital, Phoenix.

    And when she became pregnant at the age of 16, she says she was "offended" by the question of whether she would consider having an abortion.

    But a decade on, Lesley's perspective has shifted to the point where she's now campaigning to try to guarantee abortion access in her home state.

    "It's expensive," she says of raising her daughter. 

    "You have to give up a lot, and if you don't have help, or you're not wealthy, it's very hard.

    "Personally, I'm against abortion for myself, but I don't want to take that right from anybody."

    Reproductive access have become a major political issue in the United States since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade in 2022, ending the nation-wide right to abortion.

    The decision, made possible by then-president Donald Trump's appointment of three conservative justices to the court, paved the way for more than a dozen states to introduce bans.

    Vice-president Kamala Harris is hoping American women will drive a political backlash against her opponent that will help to fuel her own bid for the White House.

    But the election outcome is likely to come down to a handful of battleground states. 

    In all seven electorates that will likely decide the winner, opinion polls suggest an extraordinarily tight race between Trump and Harris.

    Many of the polls are within the margin of error, meaning the result is still too difficult to predict this far out from November 5.

    Arizona, with its prized 11 electoral college votes that could give either Harris or Trump the magic 270 figure they need to claim the White House, is also achingly close. 

    And the contest here is as heated as its scorching temperatures.

    A 160-year-old law and a new question over the future

    At her small, independently-run abortion clinic on the outskirts of Phoenix, Dr DeShawn Taylor has experienced a tumultuous few years.

    When Roe was overturned, she says she first felt numb, and then angry.

    The decision effectively upheld a law, passed in anticipation of the court's ruling, that prohibited abortions in Arizona after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    But it also raised the question of whether a near-total ban that was first introduced in 1864, but was technically still on the books, could be reinstated.

    "People have complex feelings about abortion, but what I want people to understand is that doesn't mean that a lawmaker gets to dictate what care someone can receive," Dr Taylor says.

    "Republicans have abortions, libertarians have abortions, Democrats have abortions. Because why? It is a medical procedure."

    The 1864 law was eventually repealed, and the 15-week ban remains in place today.

    But pro-abortion rights advocates succeeded in their effort to put the question of future access to the people of Arizona at the upcoming election.

    It means when voters have their say on who they want to be president, they'll also be asked whether the state's constitution should be changed to enshrine a "fundamental right" to abortion.

    Katarina White, from the group Arizona Right to Life, is working to try to prevent that from happening.

    "I'm part of a large Italian family, my parents all raised us Catholic," she says.

    "And ever since I understood how human life begins, my dad also paired that conversation with why we disagree with abortion.

    "I think I was like, 14, and that was kind of it."

    The amendment, known as Proposition 139, would guarantee abortion access up until the point of "fetal viability" — when a fetus could potentially live outside the mother's body, which is usually considered to be around 24 weeks.

    After that, an abortion could still be carried out if a healthcare professional considered it necessary to "protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual". 

    Katarina argues that goes too far. She's spending all the time she can at churches across Phoenix in an effort to encourage local parishioners to vote against the amendment.

    "They [the opposing side] make us seem like we don't care about women, and that's just not the truth," she says.

    "My stance is not extreme. I would love to help women, you know, figure out what to do next in a time of crisis, or if they're in a dangerous situation themselves, but you know, it doesn't have to be abortion or give up your life."

    Could abortion rights swing the election for Kamala Harris?

    Kamala Harris has made reproductive rights a major focus of her presidential campaign, decrying what she calls "Trump abortion bans". 

    The lack of compulsory voting in the US means political candidates face the constant challenge of having to motivate their supporters to show up for them on election day.

    And so Democrats are hoping that if people feel strongly enough about abortion rights, they'll be more inclined to vote for the vice-president.

    "I certainly think it's going to drive women to the ballot box more than previously," says Eva Burch, a Democratic state senator in Arizona.

    Senator Burch made headlines earlier this year when she used a speech on the Arizona Senate floor to reveal that she was scheduled to have an abortion later that week to end an unviable pregnancy.

    "I don't know how many of you have been unfortunate enough to experience a miscarriage before but I am not interested in going through it unnecessarily," she said at the time.

    "And right now, the safest and most appropriate treatment for me, and the treatment that I choose, is abortion."

    Senator Burch says her experience is not uncommon, and that she shared it to draw attention to the personal impacts of abortion laws.

    She's confident the ballot measure in Arizona will pass, especially considering similar measures have already succeeded in more conservative-leaning states such Kansas and Ohio.

    Trump has also taken notice of the results in those electorates.

    The former president claims credit for helping to overturn Roe, arguing power over abortion belongs with the states.

    But he's previously argued Republicans who "poorly handled" the issue by introducing bans with few exceptions were to blame for his party's weaker than expected performance in the 2022 midterm elections.

    He's since continued to distance himself from the strictest laws around the country, and called for exceptions in cases of rape or incest, or where the mother's life is at risk.

    "I think [the exceptions are] very important. Some people don't. Follow your heart," he said in June.

    "But you have to get elected also."

    Trump’s position has upset some in the anti-abortion movement. Katarina White describes Trump's recent comments as being "kind of hard for me to stomach".

    "I know that abortion at any point is wrong," she argues. 

    But she's still planning on voting for the former president.

    "I know if I don't vote for Donald Trump, it's just another vote for Kamala Harris," she says.

    "And if Kamala Harris becomes the president, it just puts us back even further in the pro-life movement than we want to be."

    The other big issues that could help win the election for Trump

    While abortion is currently dominating a lot of the attention in Arizona, there are several big election issues at play across the state.

    Rapid population growth in cities like Phoenix has added to the housing and cost of living pressures being felt all over the country.

    Arizona is also a border state. Head south from Phoenix and you'll eventually get to the US boundary with Mexico, meaning immigration policy is front and centre.

    Cristina Junge campaigns for the former president as part of his 'Latino Americans for Trump' group.

    It's a demographic that has traditionally shown more support for Democrats, but Cristina believes that's changing.

    "I think that Latinos, we are very much of what Trump is. He believes in the family, number one, that is the most important, the family is the base of society," she says.

    "So [I] believe in God, in the family, in freedom and in my country."

    Cristina moved to the US from Colombia in the 1960s and is now an American citizen.

    "I came legally, of course," she says from her retirement village west of Phoenix.

    But she's angry at the number of people who have crossed the southern border without authorisation since President Joe Biden and Harris were in office.

    And she thinks immigration will be one of the most powerful issues for voters in November.

    "We need to close the border, we need to continue building the wall," she says.

    Cristina is critical of Harris as a candidate, and rejects the notion that American women would be better off under the country's potential first ever female president.

    "They want to make [Trump] like this bad man," she says.

    "No, he is a man, a human being, and he's not perfect. I don't think that there is a perfect human being in the world that you can talk about.

    "But he is the man that we need at this moment."

    Lesley Chavez thinks otherwise. She believes a Harris presidency — "if she does it correctly" — would open doors for other women across the country.

    And she scoffs at the former president's recent claim that he'd be a "protector" of women if he's elected.

    "You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today," Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania last month. 

    "You will be protected, and I will be your protector."

    Lesley says she thinks Trump is "really smart financially". 

    "He would help us out financially," she says.

    "But … I think he's racist, and he absolutely hates women. I mean, he's made it very clear."

    Polls suggest Trump currently holds a narrow lead over Harris in Arizona.

    But in this state, like the others that could go either way, the race is still considered too close to call.

    Additional reporting by in Washington DC


    ABC




    © 2024 ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved

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