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Planned Parenthood<\/a>\u00a0will spend $40 million ahead of November\u2019s elections to bolster President\u00a0Joe Biden<\/a>\u00a0and leading congressional Democrats, betting that voters angry<\/a> at Republican-led efforts to further restrict access to\u00a0abortion<\/a>\u00a0can be the difference in key races around the country.<\/p>\n The political and advocacy arms of the nation\u2019s leading reproductive health-care provider and abortion rights advocacy organization shared the announcement with The Associated Press before its wider release Monday.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n The push will try to reach voters with volunteer and paid canvassing programs, phone banking and digital, TV, and mail advertising.<\/p>\n \u201cAbortion will be the message of this election, and it will be how we energize voters,\u201d said Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes. \u201cIt will be what enables us to win.\u201d<\/p>\n The spending plan is not an election cycle record for the group. It spent $45 million ahead of Biden defeating\u00a0Trump<\/a>\u00a0in 2020 and\u00a0$50 million<\/a>\u00a0before the 2022 midterms.<\/p>\n Planned Parenthood\u2019s advocacy arms focused on pouring money into contests where access to abortion was on the ballot after\u00a0the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade<\/a>, the landmark 1973 case that created a constitutional right to have an abortion, a decision handed down two years ago Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe continue to see the devastation that comes when anti-abortion politicians have power,\u201d Lawson said of the years since. \u201cIt\u2019s just gotten worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Abortion continues to be one of the nation\u2019s most important political issues, but dynamics around it have changed since the Supreme Court ruling. After the ruling,\u00a0most Republican-controlled states imposed new abortion restrictions<\/a>, including some bans at every stage of pregnancy.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, voters in seven states \u2014 California, Michigan and Vermont, as well as usually reliably Republican Kansas, Kentucky, Montana and Ohio \u2014 sided with abortion-rights supporters on ballot measures.<\/p>\n In November, voters in several other states, including battleground Arizona and Nevada, will have abortion referendums on the ballot, as will Florida, a onetime presidential bellwether that has gotten increasingly Republican in recent cycles but where Biden\u2019s campaign is hoping turnout for the abortion ballot initiative can make things closer.<\/p>\n SBA Pro-Life America, one of the country\u2019s most prominent groups opposed to abortion rights, announced in February that it plans to spend $92 million targeting voters in eight battleground states: Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Montana and Georgia.<\/p>\n In addition to national efforts, local Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations in California, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio are planning advocacy campaigns ahead of November.<\/p>\n Planned Parenthood advocacy efforts also will focus on some down-ballot races, like aiding Democrats seeking a supermajority in the Nevada statehouse, or opposing two state supreme court justices up for reelection in Arizona after they voted to\u00a0allow officials to enforce an 1864 law<\/a>\u00a0criminalizing nearly all abortions, which the state legislature has since voted to repeal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t just vote for ballot initiatives,\u201d said Lindsey Harmon, executive director for Nevada Advocates for Planned Parenthood Affiliates PAC. \u201cWe also have to support the infrastructure that makes abortion access possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n