Republicans are bullish on breaking a 50-year cycle in which Democrats have shut Minnesota out of presidential elections, but a new law in neighboring Iowa has brought a controversial political issue to the forefront in the state.
Iowa’s new six-week abortion ban took effect Monday, and one of Minnesota’s top executive officials issued an invitation to Iowans seeking access to an abortion service.
The news comes as former President Trump, once within the margin of error against President Biden, is now falling further behind Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the “Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.”
After touring a non-profit abortion clinic in Bloomington, Minnesota, Democratic Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan urged women to travel north if they cannot get an abortion in Iowa.
“If you’re scared, come to Minnesota and we’ll protect you,” Flanagan said.
Iowa’s six-week abortion restriction goes into effect after state court challenge rejected
Pro-abortion rights demonstrators gather near the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Policy in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Nicholas Liepins/Anadolu via Getty)
Earlier this year, Flanagan tweeted: NCAA March Madness Bracket: Teams will be selected based on each state’s level of abortion restrictions.
“By this standard, it’s fair that Minnesota should have been the favorite to win but didn’t make the tournament,” she wrote at the time.
Harris currently leads Trump by six points in Minnesota as Democrats attack Republicans on abortion and pregnancy-related issues.
Harris’ campaign did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokesman for Trump reiterated the Republican candidate’s Tenth Amendment-centric stance that, in any event, it is up to states to decide abortion policy.
“President Trump has long been a consistent supporter of states’ rights to make decisions regarding abortion,” said Carolyn Leavitt, national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.[W]Meanwhile, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are fundamentally out of touch with reality in their support of pre- and post-birth abortion and having taxpayers foot the bill for it.”
Trump’s tough response to the assassination attempt likely won him votes from his critics.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a news conference. (AP Photo/Abby Parr, File)
The latter reference was directed at former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a pediatrician who once publicly pondered deciding what to do for a mother who goes into labor or immediately after the baby is born.
Leavitt said there are bigger concerns on Minnesotans’ minds than abortion when considering Harris’ candidacy.
“Harris encouraged donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which releases convicted murderers and rapists from prison and returns them to communities across the country,” she said.
“Kamala wants this election to be about something other than her extreme policy positions and dismal record, but Minnesotans know she is weak, a failure and dangerously liberal.”
Fox News Digital also reached out to Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Timothy Walz, for comment on Flanagan’s invitation and the issue of abortion in a political context, but did not receive a response.
But in a post on X, Walz said Minnesota is “taking care of our neighbors.”
“While our neighbors in Iowa are being stripped of their fundamental rights, my message is clear: reproductive freedom will remain protected in Minnesota,” Walz wrote.
But the White House responded to the news by blasting Iowa’s “extreme anti-abortion law.”
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Abortion rights advocates rally in front of the J. Marvin Jones Federal Building and Courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, on March 15, 2023. (Moises Avila/AFP via Getty Images)
“[It bans] “Many women need access to care before they even know they’re pregnant, and Iowa will become the 22nd state to enact an abortion ban,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“These bans imposed by Republican elected officials are putting women’s health and lives at risk.”
Minnesota has not elected a Republican president since Richard Nixon, and its only delegates in the past 100 years have been Dwight Eisenhower and Herbert Hoover.
Trump continues to expect Minnesota to be a key state in the campaign, with his rally in St. Cloud on Sunday providing an example of that.
At this event, big names He called Harris “evil.” He then cited his past solicitation of donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, mentioned above.
Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, has come under fire recently after remarks on a podcast resurfaced in which he suggested imposing federal penalties on abortion-related travel.
“Let’s say Roe v. Wade is overturned. Ohio bans abortion… and, you know, every single day. [Hungarian-American billionaire] “George Soros sent a 747 to Columbus to disproportionately carry black women to get abortions in California,” Vance said in the resurfaced comments.
“And of course the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity, which is kind of creepy.”
However, Governor Vance has recently appeared to soften his position, saying in December that “we have to accept that the American people do not want a total ban on abortion.”
“I say that as someone who wants to protect as many unborn children as possible. There have to be exceptions for things like the life of the mother and rape,” he told CNN at the time.
The Associated Press contributed to this report..
