This article was co-published with Reckon as part of The 19th News Network’s Abortion on the Ballot series.

Abortion won’t be on the ballot in Pennsylvania this November, but voters in the state could indirectly determine the future of abortion access. 

Political analysts have consistently said that whoever becomes the next president will need to win the state to do so, with Decision Desk HQ analysts projecting that Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral college votes is one of the only viable pathways to winning the election.

The next president to enter the Oval Office will help map the future of federal abortion policy. During his term, Donald Trump laid the groundwork for the fall of Roe v. Wade by appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court. The former president has distanced himself from the idea of a federal abortion ban, however, he recently told Fox News both that a ban was “off the table,” but “we’ll see what happens.”

Kamala Harris has been stark in her stance on protecting reproductive rights. While on the ticket for President Joe Biden’s reelection ahead of him dropping out, she backed his pledge to “restore Roe.” Since launching her own candidacy, Harris has platformed abortion as one of her main issues and continued to express the need to federally protect reproductive rights. 

Analysts describe the race as a dead heat in Pennsylvania and other swing states. 

Some of the latest polls show: 

• Newsweek’s poll of 1,000 registered voters from September 24 to October 2 showed 51.3 percent support Harris, while 48.7 percent support Trump.
• Emerson College’s poll of 1,000 likely voters in Pennsylvania, collected from October 5 to October 8, showed 49 percent support Trump, with 48 percent supporting Harris.
• Analysis by The New York Times of 88 polls from various organizations and news outlets pins Harris with a slight advantage in the state, 49 percent to Trump’s 48 percent (last updated on October 18)  

With less than a month left before Election Day, candidates, voter engagement groups and registration organizations are ramping up their outreach to voters. And even if abortion isn’t directly on the ballot in Pennsylvania, the message about the stakes is reaching them in ways that consider the many intersectional identities of voters. The broader understanding of reproductive rights is reshaping political conversations in the state. 

Voter engagement in the final stretch

Pennsylvania voters know they’re being courted by presidential campaigns. 

“I think that it’s hard to ignore [with] the absolute flood of advertising we’re seeing on television right now,” said Susan Boser, League of Women Voters of PA (LWV-PA) director of social policy. “A lot of it actually is targeting health care issues.”

Boser says LWV-PA is focusing on voter registration, navigating voter access, and providing information about candidates and their stances on issues. She told Reckon that as the chapter celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, its original focus on children, family, education, and the environment remains relevant today. 

“It’s really quite extraordinary to see we’re still focusing on those issues. And women’s health care is right up at the front of that,” she said.  

According to Boser, while the issues haven’t changed, the language and format have. As a recently retired social policy professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, she learned how to communicate with her college students, many of whom are Gen Z. 

“I would not speak to them the same way I might speak to someone else [who is older], and we’re also having to look at the places [where] we’re putting out information. We know we can’t send an email and hope that we’re going to reach all of our members,” she said.    

Gen Z could be a key demographic to reach. A UCLA study published this fall found that almost half of Gen Z respondents were not motivated to vote in the election before Harris’ nomination; now, one-third of that group is motivated to vote for her. KFF’s latest survey of women voters under 30, published October 11, finds that abortion is the top issue for 39 percent of this demographic. 

“There was interesting data I found recently that the difference in the 2020 presidential election was about 80,000 votes. It wasn’t huge, but that’s also the number of college students currently in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. And when you think about those numbers, and you think about the voting turnout of young people across the state, they have the capacity to change the course of an election, you know?” Boser said.

Nourbese Flint, president of All* in Action Fund, an organization dedicated to building political power for abortion justice, says that the organization’s work in Pennsylvania for this election has sought to bring fun into voting. This month, All* in hosted a day party with music, henna tattoos and tarot card readers to encourage voter registration and discussions about reproductive justice in Philadelphia. Flint says they’re finding that for Gen Z voters, abortion is top of mind.

“From all the polling that we’ve done, the folks that we’ve talked to, abortion is one of the highest pieces of things that they’re thinking about when they’re thinking about voting this year,” Flint said.

While young people are a key demographic, she said that reaching voters effectively takes more than directing messaging at specific age groups, and must consider their other identities and lifestyle. Flint used herself as an example, a millennial and mother to a young child.

“The best way to catch me is probably either by mail or maybe something on Instagram. And that is kind of like, who I am and where I am and moving in the world,” she said. “Whether folks are using email or text or they pick up the phone or they don’t pick up the phone when they see numbers that they don’t know — all of that changes depending on the type of [lifestyle] clusters that you’re in.”

Beulah Osueke, executive director of New Voices for Reproductive Justice, an organization dedicated to the health and well-being of Black women and girls and queer individuals, told Reckon that in this election the organization’s work has focused on addressing voter apathy. 

The organization found through community assessment surveys and hundreds of conversations through phone banking, door knocking, and hosting community events, that Black Pennsylvanians have trouble grasping the influence of their vote as they navigate their day to day. 

“When people are worrying about things like paying a bill or worrying about whether their child is going to encounter violence on their way to school, influence can feel like a lofty claim,” she said. 

As a result, New Voices’ voter engagement campaign this year is “Our Power is Local,” stressing the importance of local elections and helping communities build power outside of voting, including participating in paid leadership development opportunities. 

“This interest was earned, so how do we [now] earn your interest, your curiosity, your exploration outside of this, and then how do we eventually bring you alongside a journey where you can recognize the legitimacy or necessity of voting, even if you’re not like voting’s biggest fan?” Osueke said.

The result? Catering the message to what Black Pennsylvanians said is important to them. 

Abortion remains a hot topic in this election. While the economy and inflation are overwhelmingly the top issues for the majority of voters across the country, according to polling by KFF, abortion is the top concern for about 7 percent of voters; about 61 percent say they prefer a federal law protecting abortion over leaving it up to individual states. In Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported this summer that 69 percent of Pennsylvanians want the federal government to set abortion access rather than the states, including 58 percent of Republicans and 79 percent of Democrats.

Rather than focus on abortion specifically, New Voices’ voter engagement  highlights bodily autonomy as a right, which Osueke says resonates with the community. 

“There are a lot of people who will gleefully act like abortion is the path to liberation, and it’s a component, but it’s just not the totality,” Osueke said.

The concept of reproductive justice, first coined by Black women activists in 1994, goes beyond traditional abortion discourse, encompassing bodily autonomy as a human right — including access to reproductive health care and abortion — not just choice. Additionally, reproductive justice takes an intersectional approach considering access to comprehensive sex education, pregnancy care, safe homes, finances and other factors which can impact a person’s capacity to care for themselves, their children and their family-building choices. In Pennsylvania, this framework is increasingly relevant as voters grapple with interconnected issues.

Osueke said while they do talk about abortion access, they also discuss reducing gun violence, increasing environmental protection, and improving access to gender-affirming care — what she says are all factors in the ability to raise children in healthy communities, and are all concerns communicated by the people they serve. 

As the nation faces its own maternal mortality crisis, families in Pennsylvania face additional challenges in raising children. According to the March of Dimes, 7.6 percent of the state’s counties — and 35 percent of all counties in the United States — are maternal care deserts, with no access to a hospital or birth center that offers obstetric care. Boser says these counties are concentrated on the northern, central and rural parts of the state. 

“Those are counties [where] cellular coverage is poor, broadband is poor. So these women — it really is affecting maternal health outcomes,” she said. 

Beyond maternal care, environmental and safety concerns loom large for voters. Fracking in the area has been linked to water pollutants like arsenic, while gun violence disproportionately affects Black communities. According to CeaseFirePA, Black Pennsylvanians are 21 times more likely to be killed by a gun than their White counterparts.

Osueke told Reckon that both fracking and gun violence are major concerns for voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh this election cycle. Voters are increasingly looking at candidates’ stances on a wide range of issues — from health care and education to environmental policy and gun control — through the lens of reproductive justice, Osueke said.

“I feel like it would be a disservice to uplift the importance of abortion because it’s a hot topic, and not also lift up the importance of daily struggles that plague our people outside of this election season,” she added.