Pamela Paul: By making abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign, Harris had a “reductive view of women’s lives as citizens.” 

New York Times columnist Pamela Paul joins the chorus of voices trying to explain what happened on Tuesday.

Here is a taste:

But do not blame women for Kamala Harris’s loss. Blame Kamala Harris and her campaign strategists.

Apart from promising to safeguard abortion rights, the Harris campaign didn’t do nearly enough to address other issues important to women, including the “kitchen table” economy, education, gun control, health care, the environment and immigration. The long hangover of Covid was brushed aside like yesterday’s nightmare. If there’s one thing almost every woman can agree on, it’s that they do not like being taken for granted.

Harris’s biggest mistake was leaning hard on a single issue, making abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign, which reflects a fairly reductive view of women’s lives as citizens. Women — even women who favor abortion rights — do not vote by uterus alone.

Nor is abortion a universal concern. After all, large swaths of women aren’t trying to or able to get pregnant. And some of the reddest states have passed measures to protect abortion rights, but voted overwhelmingly for Trump. The majority of women who seek abortions are already mothers who often terminate pregnancies for financial reasons. They worry about how to feed and educate the kids they already have.

Read the entire piece here.

As I argued here, Harris’s decision to make abortion a centerpiece of her campaign turned-off many anti-Trump evangelicals who were looking for reasons to vote for her.

Most Americans support abortion rights, but they also favor some restrictions. The Harris campaign did not embrace this nuance.