(LifeSiteNews) — America’s top pro-abortion pressure groups, Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) and Reproductive Freedom for All (RFFA, formerly NARAL), are gearing up to spend millions of dollars to take control of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections.
PPAF, the political arm of the nation’s largest abortion chain, has announced it intends to spend $2 million to target nine Republican incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives it deems politically vulnerable in hopes of flipping the chamber to Democrat control: Reps. Juan Ciscomani and Dave Schweikert in Arizona, Gabe Evans in Colorado, Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa, Bill Huizenga and Tom Barrett in Michigan, Mike Lawler in New York, and Brian Fitzpatrick and Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania.
The money will go to digital and in-person informational campaigns that emphasize their opposition to making permanent the federal government’s one-year defunding of Planned Parenthood (which expired last weekend).
RFFA, meanwhile, has announced a $23.5 million “My Body My Ballot” campaign it says will “focus on persuading and mobilizing voters – including independents, soft Republicans, and split-ticket voters – whose support for abortion access puts them at odds with Trump and his endorsed candidates” through digital advertising, traditional and social media, and on-the-ground activist mobilization, with “priority investments” in Arizona, California, Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada.
“Abortion is popular – more popular than any individual politician,” RFFA president and CEO Mini Timmaraju claimed. “What’s not popular is Trump and the MAGA movement, who continue to lose voter support with every new attack on abortion access. Instead of lowering costs or helping families plan their futures, MAGA Republicans have advanced policies that make it harder for people to decide whether, when, and how to grow their families.”
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, national Republicans have largely played defense on the issue, due to public opinion trending against life in polls such as those conducted by Gallup, Pew, and Marist, as well as a difficult track record for abortion-related ballot initiatives.
But those polls also show the public is not on board with the full extent of the Democrat Party and the abortion lobby’s position, which is effectively unlimited abortion throughout pregnancy for any reason, at taxpayers’ expense. Polls also suggest that of those voters for whom abortion is their top issue, pro-lifers are more strongly motivated than pro-choicers.
Republicans are facing an uphill battle in the midterms, as President Donald Trump continues to struggle with an overall 56.5 percent job disapproval rating and widespread discontent with his handling of issues such as abortion pills, federal spending, tariffs, the Iran war, and mass deportations.
The ultimate question remains how that dominance translates to the general electorate. RaceToTheWH currently projects a tied Senate and a Democrat takeover of the House.
But emphasizing social issues popular with their progressive base at the expense of kitchen-table concerns has burned Democrats and their allies before and could do so again.
After the 2024 presidential election, polling by the pro-Democrat firm Blueprint found that the statement “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” was the third-biggest reason for why overall voters chose not to vote for her, and the number one reason why swing voters rejected her and voted instead for Trump. A confidential autopsy report initially suppressed by the Democrat National Commission but finally released in May admitted the same.