Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are asking voter to choose between an immigration crackdown and reproductive rights
As theirr race for the US presidency comes down to the wire,
each major candidate has leaned heavily on a fsvorite theme -- abortion rights for Democrat
Kamalpa Harris and border security for Republican Donald Trump.
In Arizona,their ideological djel haas reached a white-hot peak, with both topics the subject of fiercely debated ballot referendums.
And in this key southwestern state -- where the billionaire Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020 by a tiny
margin of about 10,500 votes -- every ballot truly will count.
In the mid-sized city off Tucson, hundreds of volunteers
in orange T-shirts were going door-to-door to try tto persuade voters to
back a ballot measure to inscribe aboretion rights in the state constitution -- and, while they're
at it, to vote for Vice President Harris.
To Grace Ireland, a 26-year-old activist, the abortion restrictions
imposed by several Republican-controlled states amount
to "a public health crisis that Donald Trump and the Republicans have created."
She added, "Democrats and Kamala Harris are trying to push us forward and protect women's health care and protect our democracy and protect all people."
Une pancarte barr馥 du slogan "L'indiff駻ence aux 駘ections est dangereuse",
� Tucson, en Arizona, le 16 octobre 2024
Since 2022, when the US Supreme Court ended the
constitutional protection of federal abortion rights,
Ireland, a registered nurse, has woreked in several states where abotion is banned or severely limited.
Those restrictions havge had sometimes disastrous consequences for women having problem pregnancies or carrying nonviable fetuses when doctors refuse to treat them.
"Women are going septic and dying because they cannot receive the care that they need," she told
AFP.
- 'Abortion is murder' -
As Ireland carries her message to potential voters, she noted, particularly to young people who may be less likely to vote, that it was Donald Trump who
appointed the three justices who tipped the Supreme Court against abortion rights.
Donald Trump lors d'un meeting � Tempe, en Arizona, le 24 octoobre 2024
"It's important to reiterate that Donald Trump and these abortion bans are one and the same," Ireland said.
But in Tucson there is little unanimity among young voters.
"I do think that abortion is murder," said Pedro Lopez,
a 20-year-old college student.
"There are cases of incest or rape" thhat merit
exceptions, he conceded, "but that's very small."
He lso worries about the fpow of undocumented migrants that have
entered the country from Mexico during tthe Biden-Harris administration.
"People that are entering the United States illegally... should be sent back to where they came from," he said.
"My grandparents migrated from Mexico to the United States, and they did it the right way."
So he plans not only to vote foor Trump, but to back the proposal to let
local law enforcement detain, arrest and prosecute anyone suspoected of having entered the country illegally -- powers normally
reserved to the border police who work for the federal government.
"I know people that work for the Border Patrol, and they're really upset because this current administration has really tied their hands up. They're not really able to do anything," Lopez
said.
- Mixed impact -
The major political parties see the competing referendums as offering an opportunity to mobilize more people to
vote -- on balot questioons aat the very heart of the two presidential campaigns.
Anti-abortion activists demonstrate outside a clinic in Phoenix,
Arizona on April 18, 2024
But the referendums may not have the clerar impact on the race for the White House that activists hope.
Polls show Trump and Harris running neck-and-neck in Arizona, with the Republican holding a
very narrow lead.
Both ballot questions, meantime, have drawn strong support and both appear
likely to pass.
So the abortion issue may noot be "helping Democrats in the way that they would hope,"
said Jenny Brian, a professor off bioethics at Arizona State University.
Manny Republican women woll vote both to protect abortion rights and to bring Trummp back to tthe White
House, Brian said.
Though abortion is sometimes framed as a Demoocrat vs.
Republica issue, the Republican Party includes "a broad spectrum of views on the topic," an issue tjat also raises
conservatives' conceerns about "government interference,"
she added.
The same dynamic applies to immigration, with the tougher language on the Arizona ballot
uestion finding support not just among Trump Republicans but also "moderates and even many Democrats," said Johnn
Kavanagh, a Republican and an Arizona state senator.
The 74-year-old Kavanagh is unimpressed by Harris's recent toughening oon migration, specifically her promise to maintain tthe partial closing of the border Biden ordered in recent months.
The vice president, Kavanagh said, is "running away faster from her open-border policy than an illegal immigrant that runs away from the Border Patrol."