Harris campaign kicks off reproductive rights tour in Florida

Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign kicked off a weekslong 50-stop "reproductive freedom bus tour" across battleground states in West Palm Beach, Florida -- former President Donald Trump's backyard -- on Tuesday.

The campaign said "reproductive rights storytellers" will join campaign surrogates along the route to help emphasize the split screen on the issue between the Harris-Walz campaign and Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance.

Women's reproductive rights are a key voter issue driving suburban women to the polls, and has been a spotlight since the Supreme Court overruled the constitutional right to abortion that had been the law nationwide for almost 50 years.

"Our campaign is hitting the road to meet voters in their communities, underscore the stakes of this election for reproductive freedom, and present them with the Harris-Walz ticket's vision to move our country forward, which stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump's plans to drag us back," Harris-Walz Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a statement.

The bus tour began just days after Trump announced a sweeping new policy proposal on in vitro fertilization, promising to make the costly treatments free. The former president has not yet provided any specific details about how he would fund the initiative.

Trump's initiative is seen as a way to court those suburban women as November approaches.

On a phone call with reporters on Friday, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has been campaigning for Harris, said "American women are not stupid" and that they understand the promise is coming from Trump, who has consistently bragged about being responsible for the Supreme Court's decision to overrule Roe v. Wade.

"It was Donald Trump who opened the door for any extremist judge or extremist state legislature to ban IVF without legal protection for abortion and IVF," Warren said.

Tuesday's bus tour kicked off in West Palm Beach -- not far from Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago.

"Now my friends, I ask you, what better place to kick off the Harris/Walz reproductive freedom bus tour than in Donald Trump's backyard?" Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, said.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke at the event and called on women to have their voices heard.

"Americans have shown us time and time again that they will not tolerate a country where our daughters have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers, and they believe that women have the right to make their own health care decisions and not politicians," Klobuchar said.

Chavez Rodriguez said the campaign is mobilizing around women's reproductive rights.

"Today, by launching this bus tour, we are reminding Trump of the fact that by pulling our reproductive freedom and putting it on the ballot, he is going to have an incredible amount of energy and organizing that he is going to have to contend with."

Later in the bus tour, there will be appearances from reproductive rights advocates Amanda Zurawski, Hadley Duvall and Kaitlyn Joshua throughout the tour as well, according to the campaign.

So far, the Harris-Walz campaign already has events scheduled in Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Georgia for the bus tour -- with more stops scheduled throughout the fall.

This election cycle, seven states, including the critical battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, will vote on abortion-related ballot initiatives in November.

According to a New York Times/Siena Poll released in August, abortion was a top-three issue among all registered voters in swing states with 14% of registered voters saying it was the most important issue in deciding their vote this November.

Trump, whose stance on abortion has wavered at times over the past year, recently criticized Florida's six-week abortion ban.

"I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks," he said to NBC News last month.

His campaign attempted to walk back that comment before Trump clarified that he'll be voting "no" on Florida's Amendment 4 -- also known as the "Right to Abortion Initiative" -- come November, despite continuing to claim that a ban at six weeks is "too short."

This isn't Harris' first time hitting the campaign trail to focus on reproductive rights. She had already been tapped to lead reproductive rights discussions under President Joe Biden's former campaign. In January, she embarked on a "reproductive freedom tour" on the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, making stops in Florida and Arizona.