Vice President Kamala Harris is bringing her presidential campaign to Houston Friday for a rally meant to focus voters’ attention on Texas’ restrictive abortion policies as a warning for Americans about the dangers of re-electing Donald Trump.
The Harris campaign calls Texas “ground zero of the nation’s extreme abortion bans” and sees the issue as a galvanizing force that can sway voters in the waning days of the presidential race pollsters say could be decided by a few thousand votes in a handful of states. Harris will be joined on stage Friday by several women who have been negatively impacted by Texas abortion laws, among the most restrictive in the nation.
“She is trying to use Texas to send a message to people concerned about abortion rights in battleground states with the argument that Texas is their future if Donald Trump is elected,” Rice University Political Science Professor Mark P. Jones said.
It will be at least the fourth time Harris has visited Houston this year.
The rally will feature appearances by Beyoncé, Willie Nelson, DJ Tryfe and Tina Knowles, according to the Harris-Walz campaign and a Democratic National Committee staffer. Both Beyoncé and Nelson have endorsed Harris.
The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won Texas was 1976, when Jimmy Carter beat President Gerald Ford by less than four percentage point.
Texas adopted strict abortion restrictions in 2021, a year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ruled there is no constitutional protection for abortion. Texas law bans doctors from performing abortions once a “fetal heartbeat” can be detected, typically around five or six weeks into a pregnancy.
While in the White House, Trump appointed three justices to the nine-member Supreme Court who helped shift the majority to overturn the 1973 national abortion rights precedent. Democrats have used the decision to mobilize voters, winning a string of abortion rights victories in states across the nation since 2022.
Texas laws have created a tangle of issues that have spurred court challenges, discouraged obstetricians and gynecologists from working in the state and led tens of thousands of pregnant women to travel to other states for abortions.
A recent study published by the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics found that infant mortality in Texas rose 8 percent after Texas enacted the 2021 restrictions, far higher than the 2 percent increase in the rest of the nation.
Harris will be joined Friday by Rep. Colin Allred, the Dallas Democrat looking to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz as the two parties battle for control of Congress. Allred also has put a spotlight on abortion rights and Cruz’s support for restrictive laws as he tries to narrow the polling gap with his Republican opponent.
A University of Houston poll released last week showed Cruz leading Allred by four percentage points, 50 percent to 46 percent, putting the race within reach for Democrats. The margin of error was listed as plus-or-minus 2.7 percent.
Trump led Harris by five percentage points in the same poll, 51 percent to 46 percent. Earlier this month, the Cook Political Report shifted the Texas race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican,” raising hopes for Democrats struggling to retain control of the Senate.
Allred has worked to portray himself as a more moderate Democrat than Harris in a bid to appeal to Texas voters. Jones said the Friday rally could hurt Allred as much as it helps the Democrat.
“On one hand, it helps you in terms of mobilizing voters,” he said. “On the other hand, it hurts you in that it bolsters the Cruz campaign that has tried to inextricably tie Allred to Harris.”
The Cruz campaign issued a statement saying that “Colin Allred is Kamala Harris” and warning the two were aligned in pushing “radical” policies on immigration, energy and transgender rights.
Reporter Paul Cobler contributed to this story.
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