Anti-abortion group will spend $80 million on midterm election in Michigan and other key races

BY KATHERINE DAILEY, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

MICHIGAN—Anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and its partner political action committee, Women Speak Out PAC, announced on Wednesday an $80 million investment into the midterm election cycle to maintain Republican majorities in the US House and Senate.

That funding will go to voter outreach in battleground states, including Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina and Georgia, according to a press release from the organization.

“All four states are Senate battlegrounds and contain key House battleground districts. Further, the effort includes deploying student teams into a dozen of the most competitive House battleground districts across the country,” the press release stated, although what specific districts would be targeted was not indicated.

The race for Michigan’s US Senate seat that will open up with the planned retirement of Sen. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township) features a three-way race for the Democratic nomination between US Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Royal Oak and former Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed of Detroit. All three are strong abortion rights supporters.

On the GOP side, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of White Lake Township has said he would not support a national abortion ban that would override Proposal 3, which enshrined abortion rights into the Michigan Constitution in 2022. However, Democrats have consistently noted that stance is a shift from his previous positions, including sponsorship of four bills, in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2013, that would have provided legal personhood from the moment of conception, a key anti-abortion concept and the same definition that has threatened to ban in vitro fertilization.

Until Wednesday, Rogers was the sole Republican candidate, but that changed when former Michigan GOP co-chair Bernadette Smith filed paperwork to form a committee to also run for the Republican nomination. Smith is staunchly anti-abortion.

The money from the two organizations will be spent to contact 10.5 million voters through “canvassing, digital advertising, voter contact mail and a robust early vote campaign,” the release noted, which will include home visits to 4.5 million voters.

“Republicans simply cannot win without their pro-life base, especially in midterm elections when overall turnout drops. Pro-life voters are the heart and soul of the Republican Party,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, in the press release.

POLITICO, who first reported on the funding, noted that the group’s funding promised for this election cycle is greater than the last midterms in 2022, where they pledged $78 million, but less than in the presidential election in 2024, where that number reached $92 million.

“Our mission is to fire up pro-life Americans who do not consistently vote in midterms and convince persuadable voters to reject the Democrats’ extreme all-trimester abortion agenda,” Dannenfelser continued. “We must retain our pro-life majorities in both houses to stop this extremism and prevent the abortion lobby from clawing back $500 million in taxpayer funding for their own political machine.”

WATCH: Anti-abortion group spending $4.5M to elect Mike Rogers in Michigan

This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license.