As the election draws to a close, Vice President Harris has put abortion access at the center of her closing message, while President Trump is leaning into his own health care pitch: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will deal with the nation’s ills.
Democrats see abortion as potentially decisive factor in the race and have been leaning into the issue ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade more than two years ago.
Trump’s health care message is being driven by his political marriage to Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no medical or public health degrees who is one of the country’s leading vaccine skeptics.
Observers say the contrast between the two messages is emblematic of the candidates themselves: the disciplined and on-message Harris versus the freewheeling Trump.
But the messages are also a likely final play to rally the base.
Harris has made reproductive rights a central issue to her campaign, hoping to replicate Democrats’ success from the 2022 midterm elections, when the party performed much better than expected because of voter anger over abortion.
Harris is seeking to maximize turnout among women voters.
During her closing remarks on the Ellipse outside the White House last week, Harris told supporters she will “restore what Donald Trump and his hand-selected Supreme Court justices took away from the women of America.”
A KFF poll in September showed the voters who cared most about abortion were Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent women voters of reproductive age.
In Trump’s case, his message may also be a way to ensure he has the support of people who would have voted for Kennedy, an independent candidate before he abandoned his bid and endorsed Trump this summer.
“The RFK Jr. message is receptive to many a Trump voter due to the skepticism about Dr. Anthony Fauci and how Covid was handled by the federal government,” said Stan Barnes, a veteran GOP strategist.
Barnes said it’s unlikely there are any undecided voters in his home battleground state of Arizona who are being swayed.
While Trump could risk alienating some of the more moderate GOP voters, Barnes noted that hasn’t been a major concern of the campaign.
“As we know, there is very little traditional strategic thinking about the Trump approach to campaigning and accumulating supporters,” he said.
Kennedy is openly angling for a top position in charge of health agencies during a potential Trump administration, pushing what the campaign has dubbed a “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) platform.
Trump has pledged to let Kennedy “go wild” on food and medicine.
Speaking at a rally in Pittsburgh on Monday, Trump said he would let Kennedy “pretty much do what he wants.”
“I want him to do something really important for our country, make people healthier,” Trump said.
“Do whatever you want. You just go ahead, work on the pesticides, work on making women’s health. He’s so into women’s health, and you know, he’s really unbelievable. He, it’s such a passion,” Trump said.
Trump’s embrace of Kennedy has catapulted public health issues into the spotlight. Kennedy’s “MAHA” agenda focuses on issues that generally garner bipartisan support, like removing harmful chemicals from food and fighting chronic disease.
But while public health experts agree the U.S. is suffering from increased rates of chronic diseases, some have expressed concern that Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views would influence how he approaches the problem.
Trump himself has previously expressed doubts about vaccines and echoed Kennedy’s rhetoric.
Recently, Trump has shown an openness to letting Kennedy ban certain vaccines and expressed at least some measure of support for Kennedy’s pledge to remove fluoride from America’s drinking water.
Trump’s focus on Kennedy’s fringe issues has forced surrogates to go on the defensive.
“I’m laughing because I can’t believe that we’re having a conversation about fluoride,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said on CNN on Sunday.
The Harris campaign has spotlighted Kennedy’s role in the Trump camp. Without mentioning him by name, Harris said Kennedy “is the exact last person in America who
should be setting health care policy for America’s families and children.”
GOP strategist Keith Naughton said the Trump camp’s elevation of Kennedy is another in a long line of missed opportunities on health care messaging. If he loses, Naughton said ceding the issue to Harris could be viewed as a major reason why.
“Harris ran on abortion because she has a simple message, ‘safe and legal,’ and that position has support by a solid majority of voters,” Naughton said.
“Trump could have won on health care if he had run on price inflation and proposed even a minimal plan to cut prices. But he ignored the issue. Nobody cares about fluoride in the water except RFK and a sliver of oddballs on social media.”
