Politics

White House Aims To Influence State Abortion Rights Before 2024 Election

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

Diana Glebova White House Correspondent
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The White House is preparing its rallying cry on abortion by advising to state-level leaders on how to expand access before the 2024 elections.

Jennifer Klein, director of the Gender Policy Council, had previously announced that the administration is “working closely with state leaders who are fighting to defend reproductive rights,” and a Monday report from Reuters provided further insight into the administration’s state-level influence.

The Gender Policy Council is partnering with Vice President Kamala Harris and an inter-governmental affairs team to lead the abortion efforts, regularly holding “strategy meetings with local elected officials, activists and reproductive rights groups,” Reuters reported.

“We’ve been in touch with specific legislators who are going to be really important in this fight,” a White House official told Reuters.

The administration aims to lend “legal and messaging advice” to state-level “allies” in order to make abortion a key issue in the 2024 election, according to the outlet.

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 02: Director of the White House Gender Policy Council Jennifer Klein takes reporters’ questions during the daily news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on February 02, 2023 in Washington, DC. Klein talked about the Biden Administration’s work to continue protecting access to abortion rights across the country. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The White House has divided states in to three categories, including “extremist states” like Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Idaho; “access battleground states” like North Carolina, Nebraska and Florida; and “proactive states” including Michigan, Minnesota, New York, California and Connecticut, Reuters reported.

Harris has taken a lead in promoting abortion access since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. She has “spoken to 200 Democratic state legislators on reproductive rights and convened leaders from 38 states in dozens of meetings,” Reuters reported, citing White House officials. (RELATED: Where Has Kamala Harris Been For Seven Months?)

The Daily Caller previously reported that Harris had significantly shifted her focus to abortion issues since the June Supreme Court decision, largely putting illegal immigration — another topic she was appointed to handle — on the back burner.