Could Harris' abortion advocacy be a U.S. election game changer?

Long before President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris had established herself as the administration's leading advocate of abortion rights.

Now, Democrats are hoping that will help tip the scales in November's election.

"We'll stop Donald Trump's extreme abortion bans because we trust women to make decisions about their own bodies and not have the government tell them what to do!" Harris, her party's presumptive nominee, thundered in front of a crowd in Milwaukee this week.

Two years after Trump-appointed judges helped overturn the national right to abortion, a passionate defender of reproductive freedoms at the top of the Democratic ticket could help mobilize more progressives in a tight race expected to hinge on turnout.

From investigating anti-abortion activists accused of deceptive practices as California's attorney general, to grilling conservative Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing, to becoming the first VP to visit an abortion clinic this spring, Harris's bona fides on abortion rights are unquestionable.

- Better messenger -

That contrasts starkly with Biden, who has often been reticent on the issue, frequently citing his Catholic upbringing as a reason for his discomfort.

During this year's State of the Union address, Biden deviated from pre-written remarks, opting for terms like "reproductive freedom" or "freedom to choose" instead of "abortion."

As a brand-new senator in 1973, Biden felt the Supreme Court went "too far" in deciding Roe v Wade, the ruling that established the right to terminate a pregnancy, and as recently as 2006, he described the procedure as "always a tragedy" and "not a choice and right."

Though his stance has since evolved, abortion rights activists have long sensed his reluctance to fully embrace the issue.

"What makes Harris so dangerous to Trump on abortion specifically is that, unlike Trump, she knows what she's talking about, and she can channel the anger of women voters," feminist author Jessica Valenti, who runs "Abortion, Every Day" on Substack, told AFP.

"I don't think people fully understand just how angry women are about Roe being overturned -- Harris has the ability to drive that home."

Polling by YouGov released this week found Harris enjoying a 12-point advantage over Trump on abortion, significantly higher than the five-point lead Biden held over Trump in early July.

While she hasn't yet been formally nominated, the abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All was quick to throw its weight behind her.

"There is nobody who has fought as hard for abortion rights and access, and we are proud to endorse her in this race," the nonprofit's CEO Mini Timmaraju said.

- Honeymoon period? -

On the other side of the race, Trump's running mate J.D. Vance makes the divide between the two parties even clearer.

Where Trump speaks from both sides of his mouth -- boasting about his role in overturning Roe to conservatives while emphasizing state rights to court independents -- Vance has unequivocally stated his desire to make abortion "illegal nationally."

Valenti called Vance the "personification of Republican anti-abortion extremism" who has supported a federal abortion ban, voted against protecting IVF, and compared abortion to "slavery."

"Vance's selection is definitely going to make it harder for Donald Trump to act as a moderate on this issue," Marc Trussler, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania told AFP.

Despite Harris being an effective messenger, the renewed focus on abortion and other issues partly arises from the simple fact that the political conversation had for months been dominated by questions about Biden's mental acuity, and those are now out of the way, added Trussler.

And while abortion has been a vote winner for Democrats in recent races, it's uncertain if it will be the single biggest factor in the upcoming election.

"We are very much in the honeymoon period of Harris's candidacy," he said, where she is still seen as "everything to everybody" and hasn't yet had to take up hard positions on contentious issues dividing the party, from Gaza to criminal justice reform.