Harris’ bus tour targets voters in battleground states

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 under new abortion laws at 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.”

Democrats see abortion rights as a popular issue for Harris to use against Trump, who, while president, appointed three supreme court justices who, in 2022, helped overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that had legalised abortion nationwide. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from August 21 to 28 found that a majority of voters, including 34 per cent of Republicans, want the next president to protect or increase abortion access.

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 neighbourhood voters, who 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.

“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.