Harris' Abortion Rights Bus Tour Aims for Votes the Big Rallies Don't Reach

Owner of radio station 'La Mega' Victor Martinez speaks during an event with Ana Navarro and Hadley Duvall held by the Harris-Walz campaign's national "Fighting for Reproductive Freedom" bus tour at Fountain Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 17, 2024. (REUTERS/Hannah Beier)

ALLENTOWN, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - An intimate crowd gathered around a blue bus and listened intently while Hadley Duvall, an abortion rights advocate and a supporter of Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, told how she was raped and impregnated by her stepfather at age 12.

Duvall ultimately had a miscarriage but said that under new abortion laws in her home state of Kentucky, she would have been forced to carry the pregnancy to term.

Aleyda Garcia, 53, held a Harris campaign sign in Spanish and teared up. Her son Brandon Rodriguez, 18, wiped a drop from his mother's cheek. A first-time voter, he had yet to decide between Harris, a Democrat, and the Republican Donald Trump.

Duvall's story, part of the Harris campaign's "Reproductive Freedom" bus tour, made Garcia think of her granddaughters.

"You never know when something can happen like that," Garcia said. "I want them to have a choice."

Reuters followed the bus tour for two days in Pennsylvania. Most who showed up support Harris while a few, like Rodriguez, came to hear more about her. Voters like him make up the small group who could swing the Nov. 5 election.

Democrats see abortion rights as a popular issue for Harris to use against Trump, a Republican who while president appointed three Supreme Court justices who in 2022 helped overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from August 21-28 found a majority of voters, including 34% of Republicans, want the next president to protect or increase abortion access.

Trump says he backs abortion rights in circumstances of rape, incest or when a mother's life is in danger but says it's up to each state to decide for itself, and some allow no exceptions. He denies Democrats' assertions he plans to sign into law a national ban on abortions.

The bus will make at least 50 stops that began with a few laps around Trump's Florida home in West Palm Beach. It will hit all seven battleground states expected to decide the election. The aim is to take the fight to small-town and neighborhood voters that big rallies will not reach.

Spokespeople hop off and on the bus and include Harris' husband Doug Emhoff, actors, influencers, local radio hosts, podcasters and senators. Stops include colleges, health centers and beer halls in places like Allentown, population 126,000.

"You can get into communities that you don’t get to as easily with principals flying in and out," said Morgan Mohr, senior campaign adviser for reproductive rights who rode the bus through the battleground states of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina before arriving in Pennsylvania.

Harris has vowed to bring back Roe's protections, although to do so she would likely need a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress - a long shot in the 2024 election.

In Allentown, a left-leaning city that is more than 50% Latino, the campaign gave out empanadas to appeal to a demographic group that Democrats have been losing ground with in recent years.

Honduran-born Garcia, a Democratic voter since she became a citizen, heard about the event that morning on a local Spanish-language radio station. One of the featured speakers was radio host Victor Martinez, whose first political endorsement in a three-decade career was for Harris.

Garcia said she brought her son, who works at an amusement park, so he could hear from the campaign and make an informed voting decision.

"I think I’ll probably vote for Harris," Rodriguez said, after the program ended. He said he still found Trump funny, but didn't want him to be president again.

 

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Heather Timmons and Howard Goller)