Anti-abortion group announces $52 million budget to reelect Trump and anti-abortion Senate majority
A major anti-abortion group announced on Friday a $52 million budget in battleground states to reelect President Donald Trump and an anti-abortion Senate majority in 2020.
The group Susan B. Anthony List and its super PAC Women Speak Out PAC unveiled a campaign that “will include boots on the ground, voter contact mail, phone calls, and digital ads, and is part of the organizations’ overall $52 million budget for the 2020 cycle,” according to a press release. SBA List has long been a strong Trump ally — the group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, served as the national chairwoman of the 2016 Trump campaign’s Pro-life Coalition.
The group’s announcement suggests a 2020 funding showdown over abortion rights brewing between rival advocacy groups. Planned Parenthood unveiled a $45 million 2020 electoral program in October focusing on battleground states — the group’s self-identified largest program to date.
SBA List’s ground team “will expand in phases to Iowa, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin and will make four million visits to voters overall before Election Day,” the press release continued. The group currently has about 200 canvassers working in Arizona, Florida and North Carolina, and has made more than 460,000 home visits so far in battleground states, according to a memo on the campaign.
“The stakes of this election could not be higher,” said Mallory Quigley, national spokeswoman for SBA List and its super PAC, adding that “President Trump has governed as the most pro-life president in our nation’s history.”
Quigley also falsely claimed that Democrats favor infanticide — the practice of killing a child after it has been born. Although Democrats widely support abortion rights, no candidate has expressed such a position.
She indicated that the group would target demographics that historically backed Democrats.
“From now until Election Day, our team will go door-to-door visiting traditional Democrat voter groups who may simply be unaware of the Democrats’ support for extreme pro-abortion policies,” Quigley continued. “Our focused, battle-tested voter outreach method will ensure we reach the voters who can provide President Trump and pro-life Senate candidates the winning margin on Election Day.”
Trump and SBA List have shown mutual support on several fronts. The group has cheered the administration’s surge of judicial nominees and Department of Health and Human Services measures to regulate or restrict abortion access, as well as condemned the impeachment inquiry. Trump offered a keynote address at the group’s Campaign for Life Gala in 2018.
