Planned Parenthood will spend $40 million ahead of November’s elections to bolster President Joe Biden and leading congressional Democrats, hoping that voters angry at Republican-led efforts to further restrict access to abortion can be the difference in key races around the country.
The political and advocacy arms of the nation’s leading reproductive healthcare provider and abortion rights advocacy organization shared the announcement with The Associated Press before its wider release Monday.
The group will initially target eight states: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where Biden is seeking to defend 2020 victories, as well as North Carolina, which the Democratic president’s campaign hopes to flip after Republican Donald Trump won it four years ago, and Montana, New Hampshire and New York, which have races that could help determine control of the Senate and House.
The push will try to reach voters with volunteer and paid canvassing programs, phone banking and digital, TV, and mail advertising.
“Abortion will be the message of this election, and it will be how we energize voters,” said Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes. “It will be what enables us to win.”
The spending plan is not an election cycle record for the group. It spent $45 million ahead of the 2020 Biden-Trump race and $50 million before the 2022 midterms.
