First Lady Jill Biden keys on abortion rights in Las Vegas speech
First lady Jill Biden stumped for Vice President Kamala Harris in Las Vegas on Wednesday, headlining a pair of events to encourage voters to cast a ballot early and highlight women’s “reproductive freedom.”
Jill Biden’s visit to the Xiao Long Dumplings restaurant in Chinatown and a local Harris campaign office came just under two weeks before Election Day, in which Nevada could play a crucial role in deciding the next president.
State polling shows Harris and former President Donald Trump in a statistical tie. Vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance also was in Las Vegas on Wednesday, and Trump is scheduled to speak at the Thomas &Mack Center on Thursday.
A lively audience at the crowded west valley campaign office chanted “Thank you, Jill!” as the first lady took to the microphone.
Abortion rights
“In just two weeks until the election, let’s remember the reality of this moment,” she said about the overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade case that protected abortion. “We are the first generation in half a century where our daughters will have fewer rights than we have.”
Biden tore into Trump’s Supreme Court justice picks that tipped the vote. Trump said earlier this month that he would veto a national abortion ban, and a campaign spokesperson Wednesday reiterated that stance.
“President Trump has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion and has been very clear that he will NOT sign a federal ban when he is back in the White House,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national press secretary, in a statement.
Leavitt added: “President Trump also supports universal access to contraception and IVF. Contrarily, Kamala Harris and the Democrats are radically out of touch with the majority of Americans in their support for abortion up until birth and forcing taxpayers to fund it.”
Biden told a story of a friend who had struggled getting an abortion decades ago.
“That was the reality back then, and that’s where Donald Trump has left women today; less safe and less free,” Biden said.
Biden said the next president might get a chance to appoint new Supreme Court justices, and asked supporters to vote “yes” on Ballot Question 6 to enshrine abortion rights in the Nevada Constitution.
But “that’s not enough,” she said. “We have to elect Kamala Harris and (Minnesota Gov.) Tim Walz” and re-elect Jacky Rosen to the U.S. Senate.
Biden repeated a talking point Harris surrogates have said at other campaign events: “No one has to abandon their faith or their deeply held beliefs to agree that the government shouldn’t tell women what to do.”
U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev. — who’s campaigning for re-election — and author, activist and TV star Padma Lakshmi joined Biden on the trail.
Lakshmi recalled that when she was a teenager, a car crash left her pregnant mother with critical injuries, and a doctor had advised her mother that her pregnancy no longer was safe.
Lakshmi said she accompanied her mother to a Planned Parenthood clinic.
“I remember the hate, the vitriol that she and I had to walk past,” she said about pro-life activists outside.
“I promised that day that I would do everything I could so that no young girl — no women — will have to go through that humiliation,” Lakshmi said. “It’s a very personal choice for many reasons, and it’s not something that the government should be involved with.”
Battleground state vote
Biden underscored how crucial Nevada’s six Electoral College votes are and how President Joe Biden squeaked out a win in 2020.
“Remember in 2020, we won Nevada by a little more than 33,000 votes,” Jill Biden said. “We have to do that again, Nevada.”
She advised supporters to vote as soon as they can and then spread the word.
“After you vote early, convince 10 other people to do the same,” she said.
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.