A pledge to expand abortion rights and reinstate Roe v. Wade didn’t propel Georgia Democrats to victories in 2022. But Vice President Kamala Harris is betting that a vow to extend reproductive freedom will help capture the battleground state in November.

The Democratic nominee plans a major speech in metro Atlanta on Friday on her plans to expand abortion rights if she defeats former President Donald Trump. It’s the latest effort by the campaign to highlight the issue in the closely divided state.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s latest poll shows why. In a tight race between the two presidential rivals, roughly one in 10 voters say abortion is their top priority. Many of those describe themselves as independents and moderates.

Democrats are also emphasizing support for abortion access in swing legislative districts across the state where they hope to put Republicans on the defensive over a 2019 law that bans most abortions about six weeks into a pregnancy, with limited exceptions.

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

And they’re pouring millions of dollars into TV ads and get-out-the-vote initiatives bashing Trump for selecting three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.

Democrats have reason to be optimistic. Voters have approved measures that enshrined a constitutional right to abortion in all seven states where the question has appeared on ballot initiatives since Roe was reversed two years ago.

And AJC polls show many Georgians oppose Georgia’s anti-abortion law, which took effect two years ago after three Trump-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

“In a race that could be deciding along the margins, abortion rights could be the difference maker,” said Fred Hicks, a veteran strategist who brought up President Joe Biden’s razor-thin Georgia victory four years ago. “Remember, 2020 was decided by fewer than 6 voters per precinct on average.”

Georgia Republicans are confident that other factors will decide a race that Republicans long ago declared a “must win” for Trump.

“I think inflation and the economy is going to be a bigger issue,” said Martha Zoller, a conservative commentator who serves on the board for the anti-abortion Georgia Life Alliance organization. “It is still Trump’s election to lose.”

That’s perhaps one reason why Georgia Republicans have no plans to revisit abortion restrictions, despite pressure from some activists in the party’s conservative flank who want to enact more stringent limits.

“The exceptions on the books will continue to stay there,” Senate GOP Leader Steve Gooch said. “No one is going to try to tighten or get rid of those, even though some pro-life groups did not want there to be any exceptions in the law.”

Gov. Brian Kemp and other state leaders have instead emphasized the economy and inflation — two issues that top the list of voter priorities in the AJC’s latest poll. And they’ve felt no need to shy away from their anti-abortion stances, despite the national attention to the issue.

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance defended abortion restrictions during a Monday speech to the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition. It was meant to reassure conservatives worried about Trump’s refusal to support a national ban.

“The Supreme Court’s decision was not only a victory for the Constitution,” he told the packed Cobb Galleria Centre ballroom. “It was a victory and a testament to the resolve of tens of millions of pro-life Americans who never gave up.”

A decades-old debate

Two years ago, Stacey Abrams and other Georgia statewide Democrats brought up abortion every chance they could to drive a wedge against Kemp and other Republicans who supported his 2019 law.

Kemp and other GOP candidates rolled to a reelection victory they framed as a referendum on President Joe Biden and an inflationary economy. The exception was Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who bested a Republican whose candidacy was plagued by scandal.

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com

And earlier this year, Georgia voters backed an incumbent Supreme Court justice over a former Democratic lawmaker who staked his campaign on an unorthodox pledge to support abortion rights and oppose laws that restrict the procedure.

But abortion rights supporters caution not to put too much stock in those results, particularly now that the court’s decision has been in effect for years. Democratic state Rep. Shea Roberts has shared with audiences how she had an abortion nearly two decades ago while campaigning for Harris across Georgia.

“It is absolutely devastating to know that the freedom to make these deeply personal health care decisions has been ripped away from Georgia women by Donald Trump,” said the Atlanta Democrat.

At her Friday event in Atlanta, Harris is expected to link the deaths of two Georgia women to GOP-backed anti-abortion policies that took effect shortly before they died.

Amber Thurman died after waiting for roughly 20 hours for a hospital to treat medical complications stemming from abortion pills. Candi Miller ordered abortion pills online and tried to terminate her pregnancy at home. An autopsy found fetal tissue that hadn’t been expelled. Both deaths were reported in detail by ProPublica this week.

Anti-abortion advocates say the deaths are tragic, but say the abortion pills the women used to terminate their pregnancies — and, in one instance, the negligence of medical providers — were to blame for the deaths.

Recent AJC polling shows how divisive abortion rights remain. Although many voters listed economic issues and voting rights as their most important concerns, abortion and health care also ranked among their top priorities.

Claudia Ingram, a 60-year-old east Cobb resident, expressed confidence that Trump’s abortion stance will come back to haunt him.

“Because if folks don’t remember, he was responsible in overturning Roe v. Wade,” she said. “He worked with the right-wing evangelicals to nominate those three justices that decided that their religious beliefs outweighed women’s rights to their own bodies.”

Mark Pallotta will vote for Trump in November, mainly because of his immigration and economic agenda. But he said he’s concerned with the GOP’s drive to limit abortion.

“I believe it’s a woman’s choice,” said Pallotta, a 69-year-old from Buford. “I disagree with conservatives on that because, you know what, if you don’t have a vagina, you shouldn’t try to be out there trying to make the rules.”

Staff writer Michelle Baruchman contributed to this report.