| Last Saturday, Vice President Harris traveled to the blue-skied Berkshires in western Massachusetts to speak at her first fundraiser as a presidential contender. The crowd cheered throughout her speech, but when she spoke about reproductive freedoms – they roared. "We, who believe in reproductive freedom, will stop Donald Trump's extreme abortion bans," Harris said, "because we trust women to make decisions about their own bodies and not have their government telling them what to do." The overturning of Roe v. Wade energized voters. Fourteen states now have total abortion bans and 27 have restrictions based on gestational duration, including Iowa, which implemented a six-week ban on Monday. In a Gallup poll conducted in May, about a third of US voters said they'd only vote for a candidate who shares their abortion views, a record high. Even before assuming the top spot on the Democratic ticket, I witnessed Harris make abortion rights a focus of her pitch around the country, from Vegas to Dallas to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her message has been a little different each time. Speaking before historically Black sororities, for example, she addressed religious implications. "One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body," Harris, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, told thousands of her sorority sisters on July 10. Harris has always been more confident speaking about abortion than President Joe Biden, who notably struggled to address the subject during the June debate that thrust his reelection campaign into a tailspin. Harris and Trump are now locked in a race where poll results are mostly showing a toss up, and the margin of error is going to be slim. "There's an authenticity that she has as a woman that an 80-plus year old man does not," Jennifer Lawless, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, tells me. Harris' career is a testament to that. As California's attorney general, she investigated anti-abortion activists that illegally recorded and edited videos to wrongfully suggest Planned Parenthood sold fetal parts. In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision, she launched a "Fight for Reproductive Freedoms" tour to discuss the ruling's impact, particularly in swing states. She's the first vice president to visit an abortion provider. She's also expanded the conversation to maternal mortality, IVF, contraception, postpartum coverage and health equity. Her work in these areas is coming up more frequently than her longstanding efforts to bring down drug prices, block industry consolidation, expand the Affordable Care Act and address the opioid crisis. That's for good reason, according to political strategists, who suggest Harris' best path forward is to put Trump on the defensive about abortion. "I think this is very tricky terrain for Trump," says Liz Mair, a Republican political strategist: On the one hand, he's taken credit for overturning Roe; on the other, he's not calling for a nationwide ban. Either way, he threatens to alienate some of his voters, particularly those who aren't motivated by "any other issue than abortion," she says. Former President Trump's "best shot" at winning the presidency, Mair says, is to deflect to other topics like inflation. "We're really in uncharted waters here," she says. — Riley Griffin | 
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