Biden to launch full-scale attack on Trump over abortion on Roe v. Wade anniversary

WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to rally Democrats next week in Northern Virginia over abortion rights while they skip the New Hampshire Democratic primary held the same day.

Tuesday's rally will mark the rollout of a reinvigorated push by the Biden campaign − coinciding with next week's 51st anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision − to make restoring abortion rights a defining issue in the 2024 election.

The Biden campaign intends to relentlessly remind women voters that it was former President Donald Trump's three Supreme Court appointments who led to Roe's dismantling.

“Donald Trump is the reason that more than 1 in 3 American women of reproductive age don’t have the freedom to make their own health care decisions," Biden campaign manger Julie Chavez Rodriguez said, arguing Trump "paved the way" for abortion bans across the country. "In 2024, a vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is a vote to restore Roe, and a vote for Donald Trump is a vote to ban abortion across the country."

Trump, the frontrunner to win the Republican nomination, said in a Fox News town hall last week that he's "proud to have done it" when asked about the court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. Trump later added that he supports exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.

While Biden struggles to convince Americans about an improving economy, according to polls, abortion rights has proven to be a winning issue for Democrats in recent elections.

The Biden rally will also allow him to look ahead to the general election while he ignores Tuesday's New Hampshire Democratic primary. Biden is sitting out New Hampshire amid the state's yearlong dispute with the Democratic National Committee, which adopted a Biden-backed primary calendar that recognized South Carolina as the start of the primary.

Biden's longshot Democratic challengers, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. and author Marianne Williamson, have been campaigning in the Granite State but Biden's name will not appear on the ballot.

Harris will campaign Monday in Wisconsin on the anniversary of the Roe decision, which for five decades established a constitutional right to an abortion before the court, led by a conservative majority, overturned the decision in 2022. The court's decision is widely credited with energizing Democrats in the 2022 midterms, helping them exceed expectations.

Ahead of the Roe anniversary, the Biden campaign also plans to launch television ads attacking Trump over abortion in key battleground states.

Harris is expected to spotlight reproductive rights during future trips as well, mirroring a role she played for Democrats before the 2022 midterm elections.

First lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff are also scheduled to attend the rally in Virginia, a state where Democrats took control of the state House and maintained control of the Senate in part by running on abortion rights.

Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly known as Twitter, @joeygarrison

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden campaign to launch new abortion rights effort on Roe anniversary