HOUSTON — Vice President Kamala Harris will be in Houston this evening for a mega-rally, where she’ll call for women’s reproductive freedom and highlight horror stories resulting from Texas’ strict abortion ban.
The event at Shell Energy Stadium begins at 6:30 p.m. and will be televised by C-SPAN beginning at 7:30 p.m. Central.
Harris will be joined by Democratic Senate candidate Colin Allred. The Washington Post reported that Beyoncé, a Texas native, will join Harris as well, along with the singer’s mother, Tina Knowles, and country legend Willie Nelson. With all the star power, the rally would be one of the most unique events for Harris since she became the Democratic nominee for president.
Traveling to Texas less than two weeks before the election is somewhat unorthodox, given the presidential race is expected to be decided by seven swing states.
Harris and former President Donald Trump, who will be in Austin on Friday to be interviewed for Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, are not aggressively campaigning in Texas, a state Trump is expected to win.
Democrats consider Texas ground zero in the fight to restore abortion rights, and Harris is using the state more as a stage than a political battleground.
Democrats across the country have made reproductive rights a principle campaign issue as women across the country have mobilized to push against the loss of national abortion rights and against the state bans that followed.
Texas is among 13 states that outlaw abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Texas’ abortion ban does not have exceptions for rape or incest. Though the law does contain an exception to save the life of the mother, critics say the language is vague or unclear, leaving some doctors to deny care for pregnant women with serious complications for fear of breaking the law.
“What the Vice President is trying to do is explain and spotlight the height of the crisis right here in Texas,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All. “This is the result of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court. … When we elect Kamala Harris for president and reproductive freedom majorities in Congress, we can fix this, and we get to fix it for Texas too, by passing a federal bill to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade.”
Tonight’s rally gives Harris and Allred the opportunity to refocus the Texas and national dialogue on reproductive rights.
This week Harris released a campaign ad featuring graphic images of a Texas woman the campaign says was “cut open from her breast to her pelvis” during an emergency operation after being denied a medically necessary abortion. The woman and her husband, identified only as Ondrea and Ceasar, are scheduled to appear at the rally. On Thursday, Harris released another new ad called “He Did It,” which criticizes Trump for his role in the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
Other rally participants from Texas impacted by the state’s abortion restrictions include Amanda and Josh Zurawski, who led an unsuccessful lawsuit against Texas’ abortion laws, and Dr. Todd Ivey, a Texas OB/GYN, who will speak about the risk abortion bans pose to his patients.
Allred, a Dallas Democrat in the U.S. House, has made reproductive freedom a centerpiece of his campaign against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz.
For most of the summer, Allred did not tie himself from Harris. Apart from his brief speech at August’s Democratic National Convention, Allred has rarely mentioned Harris on the campaign trail, but Friday’s rally is designed to fire up low-participation voters who need a nudge to the polls.
