If there was any doubt that a woman could lead this country, it was put to rest Tuesday night. From the moment she crossed the stage and reached out her hand to greet Donald Trump, Kamala Harris dominated the presidential debate on substance, style and seriousness.

Like the prosecutor she used to be, the vice president made her case sharply and cleanly, identifying and exploiting Trump’s weaknesses. In doing so, she effectively undercut her opponent’s longtime strategy of snidely attacking, denigrating and even looming over women in debates.

Harris learned from the former president’s past performances that she needed to land the first punch and never let up. She cast doubt on his character, his veracity, his judgment, his ability to be empathetic to the most vulnerable at home and to stand up to dictators abroad.

She cannot help but run as a woman. But the image Harris projected was that of the “bigger man.”

Of course, one good night does not a victory make. Trump did not win the election when President Joe Biden imploded in the last debate and subsequently dropped out of the race. There remains no guarantee that Harris will break what Hillary Clinton called the “highest, hardest glass ceiling.” 

But in overpowering a former president on the debate stage, Harris passed the first test. She showed that she not only is capable of winning, but of leading. 

Further, Harris was particularly commanding on the one issue that polls show is most likely to motivate people, especially women, to vote: abortion. Although Americans say they are most concerned about the economy — a point underscored by the first question posed by ABC News moderators — a plurality of potential voters have told pollsters that abortion is the singular issue most likely to influence their candidate selection.

Here, the competitors agreed on one thing: Trump was responsible for the Supreme Court decision that repealed the constitutional right to abortion. 

Trump forcefully championed his decision to nominate three justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, a ruling that polls show was opposed by the majority of Americans. He insisted, falsely, that for 52 years “every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican, liberal, conservative” wanted to return decisions about abortion to the states, which the court did in 2022. And he repeated the lie that babies are “executed” after birth, which would not constitute abortion, but murder.

Harris, an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, slapped back, saying that the court’s ruling has spawned what she labeled “Trump abortion bans” in more than 20 states, some of which provide no exception for survivors of rape and incest. “A survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next,” Harris said. “That is immoral.”

She continued, speaking firmly and passionately as she pointed accusingly at Trump: “I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that.”

Harris reiterated her pledge to sign legislation that would reinstate the protections afforded by Roe. She deflected a question about whether she supports codifying any restrictions, relying instead on the constitutional right that was in place for nearly half a century. Trump, who has waffled on whether he would vote for a ballot measure that would repeal Florida’s six-week abortion ban, said he would not sign a national ban. He did not respond directly to repeated queries about whether he would veto one.

On other topics as well, Harris employed biting language both to get under Trump’s skin, a ploy that appeared to be successful, and to portray him as a weak leader who kowtows to dictators and autocrats and has lost the trust of many of his own former appointees. In one pointed exchange, for instance, she said that “world leaders are laughing” at Trump and that some of his own military leaders say he’s a “disgrace.” In another, she said Vladimir Putin would “eat you for lunch.”

Trump tried to punch back, but not in the mean and condescending way he has with other women politicians (and journalists). He didn’t even call Harris a name, though he does on the stump. He did add to a litany of racist and sexist comments, saying this about the highest-ranking woman of color in U.S. history: “All I can say is I read where she was not Black, that she put out.” The last part of that remark seemed to fall beneath the radar.

Harris remained calm, not rising to Trump’s bait. He was unable to do the same. Perhaps the low point was when he repeated an unproven internet rumor, quickly knocked down by moderator David Muir, that Haitian immigrants in Ohio have been eating people’s pets.

A number of commentators have pointed out that the debate was unlikely to change many minds. It doesn’t have to. The goal for both campaigns is to sway the small proportion of the electorate that has yet to pick a candidate and, just as important, to energize their supporters to cast ballots.

If history is any guide, the majority of undecided voters are women. Women tend to make up their minds on voting later than men do, perhaps reflecting the shortage of time many have to tune in between paid jobs and their still-hefty family responsibilities. Women also represent the majority of the population and the majority of voters. And for decades, they have favored Democratic candidates, while men — especially white men — support Republicans. The trick for Harris is to garner more votes from women than Trump wins from men, particularly in battleground states. 

She got a big boost at the end of the night with an endorsement from megastar Taylor Swift, who posted to her 283 million Instagram followers shortly after the debate ended. While celebrity endorsements don’t often influence elections, Swift’s unrivaled popularity has the potential to move young people to vote, something that could be decisive in a close race.

Harris has embraced popular culture, from reposting Charli XCX’s description of her as “brat” to playing Beyonce’s “Freedom” in her ads.

Last night, Harris, notably, took leave of her post-debate party to the tune of Swift’s song “The Man.” The women’s empowerment anthem seemed a fitting coda to the night, with a chorus that declares:

I’m so sick of running as fast as I can.

Wondering if I’d get there quicker

If I was a man

And I’m so sick of them coming at me again

‘Cause if I was a man

Then I’d be the man

I’d be the man

I’d be the man

Abortion rights were guaranteed by the Supreme Court in 1973 and that was that. At least that’s what supporters thought for nearly five decades. And so, when they went to the polls, they based their votes for presidents, Congress members and other elected officials on issues they considered to be more pressing.

But after the Supreme Court’s unprecedented 2022 decision to revoke a constitutional right, abortion changed the course of elections for two years running. As the nation approaches the first presidential election of the post-Roe era, Democrats—who are fielding a woman presidential candidate who champions abortion rights—are banking on the issue to bolster them again.

Many public polls predict it won’t.

While the vast majority of Americans favor abortion rights, numerous public opinion polls conducted for media organizations suggest the topic has lost its potency, even among women. If any one thing will sway them, these polls say, it is the economy (and, more specifically, inflation).

That would be bad news for Democrats and their new standard bearer, Vice President Kamala Harris. Women are the backbone of the party. Without their strong support, many Democratic candidates for office—from Harris on down—surely will lose.

But are these polls right?

Not so much, say numerous polling experts, most (but not all) of them partisan. Media polls on issues, they say, are greatly flawed because they fail to ask questions that could predict what will move voters to back one candidate over another. They find that the economy is top of mind among the people interviewed—usually based on how they rank a list of issues—but not whether it will influence their votes. And there are many reasons to think it will not.

In essence, experts told The Fuller Project, “it’s the economy, stupid” made sense when James Carville scribbled it on a whiteboard in Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign war room, but the slogan’s salience 32 years later is less assured.

For one thing, today’s presidential nominees are further apart in both policy and persona than were George H.W. Bush and Clinton (and even independent candidate H. Ross Perot). Harris and former President Donald Trump stand in stark contrast to each other in substance, style, identity and experience. The American public is much more polarized than it was in the days when Democrats and Republicans could discuss politics without destroying lifelong relationships or disrupting Thanksgiving dinners. All but a sliver of the electorate is set in its ways, destined to vote for the party that it backed four years ago, experts say. That means relatively few voters are up for grabs.

On top of that, the economy is rather amorphous and difficult to comprehend, unlike immigration or gun rights or trans rights or any of the other culture-war issues du jour.

And very much unlike abortion.

In contrast to the economy, abortion evokes visceral reactions. Either you believe that women should be able to make decisions about their bodies, or you don’t. Either you believe that abortion is murder, or you don’t. You might support some exceptions, or you might not, but you probably have a position—a deep-seated belief—that doesn’t change with the Dow or the wind or the makeup of the Supreme Court.

You might not know what to think when the Federal Reserve raises or lowers interest rates, but you probably had an instant reaction when the Court overturned Roe v. Wade. You probably remember what you thought when the Arizona Supreme Court let stand a Civil War-era abortion ban or when Alabama, even briefly, outlawed in vitro fertilization. You probably felt something when the Texas attorney general effectively blocked Kate Cox from ending a dangerous pregnancy, though the fetus could not survive; when Ohio police arrested Brittany Watts following a miscarriage; when an Indianapolis doctor said she had performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim who had been denied medical care in her home state of Ohio; or each time you heard that a pregnant woman was turned away from an emergency room.

Whether you support abortion rights or not, you probably know how you felt when you learned about each of those incidents.

Especially if you’re a woman.

The effect is particularly profound in states that have restricted abortion access, says Rachael Russell, associate director of polling and analytics at Navigator Research, which uses its polls to help craft Democratic messaging.

“People are actually seeing people suffer under these bans. And I don’t see that changing, especially when you have the Republican nominee saying it should be up to the states. Women and men say, ‘That could be my daughter, that could be my friend, that could be my relative,’” she told The Fuller Project. “It’s galvanizing when people see it in personal terms.”

Whether you support abortion rights or not, you probably know how you felt when you learned about each of those incidents. Especially if you’re a woman.

That’s exactly what Democrats are counting on, not only to retain the White House but also to keep control of the Senate and perhaps take over the House of Representatives. Both chambers are narrowly divided, and one or both could change hands. The closer we draw to Election Day, the more pollsters and political experts expect Democratic candidates at every level to talk about abortion, contraception and women’s rights.

That stands to reason: A poll conducted by Lake Research Partners for Ms. and the Feminist Majority Foundation in 2023 found that voters are overwhelmingly in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. While abortion and the ERA are, individually, strong draws for voter turnouts, talking about the two issues together is even more powerful, the poll said.

“Harris’ best chance for winning is if abortion rights are central to voters when they make their choice between her and Trump,” says Democratic pollster Jim Gerstein.

Democrats’ advantage on the issue intensified when Harris became the presidential nominee. Unlike President Joe Biden, an observant Catholic who began his political career opposing abortion rights, Harris has been vocal and robust in her support. She is the highest elected official ever to visit a Planned Parenthood clinic, and has been the administration’s point person on the issue. Her inherent strength on abortion was apparent in a Wall Street Journal poll conducted in late July, just four days after Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed her.

Asked who is “best able to handle” abortion, 51 percent of respondents said Harris and 33 percent said Trump, a yawning gap that dwarfed the 12-point advantage Biden had over Trump in a Journal poll conducted in seven battleground states four months earlier. In both polls, Trump dominated on the economy, though Harris fared better than Biden.

Gerstein, whose firm conducts polls for the Journal in addition to several Democratic campaign committees, says it took some time for party strategists to come to terms with the importance of abortion rights in campaign messaging because it has not been prominent in the past.

“Reiterating this argument has been a driving force for myself and other strategists ever since it was clear that the Dobbs decision completely transformed the political environment two years ago,” Gerstein says, referring to the Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. “We also had to overcome the traditional tendency of campaigns to prioritize economic and other issues.”

Sure, the economy remains at or near the top of most poll respondents’ lists. Inflation, in particular, is something they deal with day in and day out. But “when you ask what issue is dispositive, it’s abortion,” Gerstein says.

The Harris team understands this. On the day after Labor Day—the traditional kickoff for the round-the-clock race to Election Day—the campaign is launching a 50-plus stop “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour through key states. The starting point is Palm Beach, FL, home to Donald Trump. The first-of-its-kind bus tour illustrates the profound shift in abortion politics since Roe fell.

In a Wall Street Journal poll completed in early July, respondents were given a list of issues and asked to rank their importance in the presidential election. They ranked immigration first (19 percent) and the economy second (16 percent). Democracy and abortion each came in third (9 percent). And yet, when asked to identify “the one issue” on which they could not vote for a candidate they disagreed with, the largest chunk of respondents—24 percent—named abortion. Another 19 percent said immigration is their make-or-break issue. Only 6 percent named the economy.

“They’re voting on the thing that’s pissing them off,” says Democratic pollster Jill Normington.

It’s that anger, that upset, that intensity of feeling that often gets lost when media pollsters run down a list of issues and ask participants to rank them.

Partisan polls pose different questions than media polls, in part because they serve a different purpose, Normington notes. Democratic and Republican pollsters aren’t simply taking the temperature of a race, they’re figuring out how to influence it. They ask a series of questions aimed at determining which topics resonate most, what messages participants are receptive to and what candidates can do to appeal to them. They also conduct focus groups, small gatherings in which they ask open-ended ended questions that allow participants to discuss and frame their opinions in their own words.

“When you talk about abortion as an issue in a list, it kind of obscures that something much more fundamental is going on,” says Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg. “You talk about what would happen if Trump is elected. To women, it’s happening right now. It underrepresents how fundamentally disturbed women are.”

Women are “much more focused on abortion than men,” Greenberg says. “I feel like we’re going to win on the abortion issue,” which, she adds, is “existential” for women and linked to threats to democracy. “The women I talk to in focus groups say, ‘They’re taking away our rights.’ That’s huge. The American dream is freedom to choose—except for one group of people.”

Polls reflect that while the majority of men and women back abortion rights, there is a significant gender gap as women voice stronger support nationwide and in the handful of battleground states expected to decide the presidential race. In polls of likely voters in six such states conducted in May by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College, 64 percent of respondents said they believe abortion should be always or mostly legal—including 70 percent of women and 58 percent of men, a 12-point gender gap. Only 27 percent (25 percent of women and 29 percent of men) said abortion should be always or mostly illegal.

Women are much more likely than men—and more likely than at any time in nearly three decades—to call themselves “pro-choice,” according to a May poll by Gallup, a nonpartisan polling firm. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of women used the pro-choice label compared to 45 percent of men.

It goes without saying that the people who will have to live with the Court’s decision longest and more personally are young. It’s unclear whether those under 30 will flock to the polls at the same rate they did four years ago.

That year, young voters cast ballots in greater percentages than in any year since 1972, just one year after 18-year-olds won the right to vote. And they voted disproportionately for Biden.

This year, polls showed young voters souring on the president. But within just 48 hours of Harris entering the race, nearly 40,000 people registered to vote—83 percent of them in the 18-to-34 age group, according to the nonprofit Vote.org.

Democratic and Republican pollsters aren’t simply taking the temperature of a race, they’re figuring out how to influence it.

The well-regarded Harvard Institute of Politics poll of people under 30 showed this spring that their concerns mirror those of their elders. Asked which issues concerned them most, the largest group—27 percent of respondents— said economic issues, followed by 9 percent who named immigration and 8 percent who said foreign policy or national security. Abortion and reproductive rights topped the list for 6 percent of respondents. However, when asked to make head-to-head comparisons of 16 issues, the young respondents said inflation was more important than any other issue except one: women’s reproductive rights. Not surprisingly, women under 30 ranked the importance of their reproductive rights compared to all other issues higher than did their male counterparts, 58 percent to 42 percent, respectively.

“There’s nothing more tangible than whether a young woman has authority over her own body,” says John Della Volpe, the Harvard institute’s polling director. In discussions, he says, some young people have told him they are reluctant to live or attend college in states that have restricted abortion access or banned it altogether. “That’s why it has the potential to be very powerful [in the election],” he adds.

People who say abortion will affect how they vote could be on either side of the issue. But it’s clear that more of them will support abortion rights. Gallup reported in June that nearly one-third of voters—a record high—said they would vote only for candidates whose views on abortion are the same as their own. Nearly twice as many of these voters (40 percent) said they support abortion rights as those who said they oppose them (22 percent). By comparison, 20 years ago Americans who identified as antiabortion were nearly three times as likely as abortion-rights supporters to say they would vote only for candidates with whom they agreed on abortion, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

The narrative was reversed in June 2022, when the Supreme Court handed down Dobbs, the first and, for now, only ruling to repeal a constitutional right. Abortion-rights advocates got to work, quickly tapping into the fury that the ruling unleashed nationwide.

Their strategy was successful. They took abortion to the voters and won every state initiative and referendum on abortion rights, enshrining access in some state constitutions and blocking attempts to prohibit access in others. In the 2022 midterm elections, just months after the Dobbs ruling, Democrats spent half a billion dollars campaigning on abortion on network TV alone, says Melissa Williams, executive director of a super PAC for EMILYs List, which recruits, trains and sponsors Democratic women who support abortion rights. Even as the media predicted a tsunami of GOP victories, Democrats’ internal polling suggested something else—the efficacy of abortion rights— particularly among voters under 35.

“It has been a fundamental shift in paths to victory for Democrats since Dobbs,” Williams says.

This year, advocates have been working not only to elect specific candidates but also to place abortion-rights initiatives on the ballots of several more states, a move that may drive up turnout. This comes at a time when, Williams notes, 58 percent of voters under 35 and 51 percent of all voters say abortion is more important to them than it was in past election cycles.

“That’s unheard of. That’s a marked finding,” she says. “People are very rarely single-issue voters, and what they care about over time, of course, changes because your life changes and the world changes around you. But to have that for two years in a row, that a majority of people would care more about a single issue, then to have Democrats overperforming on that issue, I think it’s very telling.”

And so, she says, “abortion is a critical component of any campaign that we are running, and that is because Republicans have proven themselves to be out of step with Americans.”

Where Republicans and Trump dominate, and have for quite some time, is among men. Democrats definitely need the support of women, but Republicans already have the support of men. Therefore, says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, “We need to win women by more than we lose men.”

Starting in 1980, women have consistently voted for Democrats in greater proportion than have men, creating a notable gender gap. It wasn’t until 1996, when then-President Clinton was running for reelection, that women changed the outcome of a race by voting Democratic in such great numbers that they overcame men’s preference for Republican nominee Bob Dole. Since then, a majority of women have voted Democratic in every presidential race.

Men, on the other hand, usually favor Republicans (except in 2008, when they split almost evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain).

It is often said that women (like any other group) are not a monolith. That’s an understatement. Just ask any woman if she’s interested in only one issue. The entire electorate comprises individual voters with myriad concerns about the future of this country. Women, however, are a majority of the population. They also vote in greater percentages than men, making them a potentially powerful demographic. So it is reasonable to think that if most women coalesce around one candidate or even around one issue, they will prevail. This year, abortion is the dominant issue for many women. But will that give the Democrats the boost they need?

It could turn out to be one of those seminal issues that gets people in their guts and rises above quotidian concerns about the price of milk or even housing. Advocates say that’s what the media often overlooks.

“The people who too often frame our conventional wisdom—so this is, to some degree, the pundits; this is, to some degree, the news directors and so on—still seem amazed that this is an issue that matters, and still seem amazed that the answer isn’t just to compromise, to find a number of weeks,” says Christina Reynolds, a spokesperson for EMILYs List. “And our take, writ large, and that of our candidates, is this is not a question of how many weeks—it’s a question of who gets to decide.”

“And voters are in the same place,” Reynolds continues. “What they very clearly understand is that whether or not they would ever have an abortion, whether or not they want one, etc., whether or not they are of childbearing years or anything like that, they understand that putting government in charge of these decisions is not where they want to be.”

Republicans acknowledge that the electoral power of abortion now works to the advantage of Democrats. That explains why Trump has struggled to position himself on the reproductive rights spectrum. In the spring, he landed on “states’ rights,” meaning each state should continue to establish its own laws on whether and under what conditions abortion is legal. It’s a divisive position among the staunchest abortion opponents, who believe no one should have the right to terminate a pregnancy. (That’s what Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, espoused before he joined the GOP ticket and adopted new verbiage.)

The people who too often frame our conventional wisdom … still seem amazed that this is an issue that matters, and still seem amazed that the answer isn’t just to compromise, to find a number of weeks. … This is not a question of how many weeks—it’s a question of who gets to decide.

Christina Reynolds, EMILYs List

And it plays into the hands of Democrats, who need only point to the current legal patchwork that has prompted hospitals in restrictive states to turn away pregnant women; forced people across a wide swath of the country, particularly in the South, to travel to other states to obtain abortions; and led to heart-wrenching stories from sympathetic women and girls that make people angry enough to want to do something about it. Against that backdrop, Trump told reporters in August that abortion as an issue has “tempered down.”

“It is still going to be a relevant issue because, quite frankly, it is about the only issue Democrats have an advantage on in this election,” Republican pollster Nicole McCleskey concedes. “They will continue to make it a relevant issue.”

But McCleskey believes the “shock value” of the Supreme Court’s decision to take away the constitutional right to abortion has faded. So while she agrees with Democrats that abortion has an “emotional impact,” she, like Trump, downplays its potential to influence voters.

“The two dominant issues are the economy and inflation, and immigration and border security,” McCleskey says. “And those issues are entirely dominated by Republicans, and voters believe that Republicans will handle those issues better.”

That’s what most polls predicted two years ago—when conventional wisdom had Republicans clobbering Democrats in Congress—but voters had something different in mind, notes Diana Mutz, director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics at the University of Pennsylvania. Democrats did lose the House, but the divide is slim, and they won a seat to secure a majority in the Senate. Since the party that occupies the White House routinely loses power during midterm congressional elections, Democrats took 2022 as a big win.

In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mutz and a coauthor reviewed 2020 and 2022 surveys of the same individuals to see how they voted each year. Most, she says, voted for candidates of the same party in both elections. But following the Dobbs ruling, a number of people who support abortion rights moved into the Democratic camp just as those who oppose abortion moved into the Republican camp. The study concluded that a large proportion of people who did not vote in 2020 but did two years later were “highly motivated by abortion.” Since more Americans favor abortion rights, Democrats had the edge.

As for inflation, which by November 2022 had hit its highest point in four decades, Republicans blamed Democrats and Democrats blamed Republicans, Mutz notes. Independent voters blamed both or neither. Why were the results so muddied? Many respondents didn’t understand the economy and couldn’t answer “basic factual questions,” such as whether unemployment had risen or declined, Mutz says.

Her study concluded that the economy—even inflation—did not change votes. “The only thing that seemed to matter,” Mutz says, “was abortion.”

What does that mean for 2024? “If they don’t try and make abortion salient before the election, that would be very silly on the part of Democrats, because it does help their cause,” Mutz says.

The lesson is not lost on Democrats and abortion-rights advocates.

“This is an issue that resonates with people all over the country,” EMILYs List President Jessica Mackler said at a press conference in late July. “And we are going to win in November by talking about this issue.”

Lisa Ann Walter first marched in support of the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights when she was a kid growing up in suburban Washington. “That was just what my family did,” she said.

More than half a century later, the actor—who currently co-stars in the TV sitcom Abbott Elementary— is still fighting. 

For the exact same things.

“I consider it my duty as an American and as a woman to try to do anything I can to continue to move forward,” she told me in an interview at the Democratic National Convention. “We’ve already gone through a lot of this shit once. We’re going to have to scrape and claw our way back.”

Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, the battle to restore abortion rights has been front and center, particularly this election year. Less visible are efforts to enshrine women’s equality into the Constitution, the continuation of a campaign that conservatives thought they killed more than 40 years ago.

Not true. Champions of the ERA have been working tirelessly to get Congress to publish the 101-year-old measure that would ban gender-based discrimination. The requisite 38 states have ratified the amendment, albeit three of them after an arbitrary and, advocates insist, alterable deadline of 1982.

Although women have made considerable strides in the intervening years, a constitutional right is the only guarantee they will make further gains and keep them in perpetuity, advocates say. And, they add, the need to add women to the Constitution endures. 

Exhibit A is the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which reversed the constitutional right to abortion.

“I don’t even think you have a democracy if women can’t make decisions about their own body,” said former Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who was a leading voice for women’s rights during 30 years in Congress. “We’re not dictating to men what kind of procedures they can and cannot have.”

The Equal Rights Amendment was proposed in 1923, three years after women won the right to vote. Women’s rights leader Alice Paul rewrote it in 1943 and Congress passed it in 1972, sending it to the states for ratification. In the simplest of terms, the amendment would prohibit discrimination “on account of sex.” 

In the preamble to the proposed amendment, Congress set a deadline of 1979, which it later extended to June 30, 1982. Women’s rights advocates, with support from civil rights groups, worked tirelessly around the country to get the amendment ratified. 

But conservatives worked hard, too, playing on fears that passage of the ERA would force women to fight in wars, use single-sex bathrooms and lose the financial support of their husbands, among other things. Leading ERA adversaries included the Catholic Church as well as the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the insurance industry. In an politically astute move, a St. Louis lawyer named Phyllis Schlafly emerged as the face of the opposition—a woman who advised other women that codifying equal rights was not in their best interest. “What I am defending is the real rights of women,” Schlafly said during the battle. “A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.”

Nonetheless, a majority of states—35—ratified the ERA before the deadline. 

Three short.

Between 2017 and 2020, three more states came on board. And now advocates argue that Congress can and should remove the 1982 deadline. Many leading constitutional scholars, including Laurence Tribe, Erwin Chemerinsky and Kathleen Sullivan, say the deadline is not binding. Notably, however, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a strong supporter of the amendment, said the effort should start over. 

Polls indicate widespread support for the ERA, and always have. Seven in 10 people who responded to a September 2023 poll conducted for Ms. and the Feminist Majority Foundation, which publishes Ms., favor placing the ERA in the Constitution, while only 12 percent oppose it. More than 60 percent of every demographic group except one—Republicans, at 46 percent—favor the ERA, with the greatest levels of support coming from Democrats (89 percent), college-educated women (82 percent), women under 50 (78 percent) and African Americans (77 percent). Six in 10 white men and the same share of men without college degrees, both of whom tend to vote Republican, also said they backed the ERA, as did 69 percent of women 50 and older. 

“The ERA is significantly more popular than all the politicians who oppose it,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, whose firm, Lake Research Partners, conducted the poll. But, she added, “it’s been impossible to get it in the public dialogue.”

Maloney is working to change that, to make the ERA more visible within Congress and the nation. At the Democratic convention, she did so quite literally: by sporting a green leather jacket with “ERA” written in large silver studs across the back.

“I would say the Equal Rights Amendment is insurance,” Maloney told me. “The only way we can protect women is to have an ironclad law. If they can roll back a woman’s right to choose, then they can roll back any right.”

For example, she said, equal pay is “not enforceable because women aren’t in the Constitution.”

At a gathering of ERA supporters sponsored by the Feminist Majority, Rep. Ayanna Pressley said ratification would provide a legal tool to combat “everyday discrimination women face, including pay discrimination, pregnancy discrimination [and] sexual and domestic violence.” 

Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat and co-founder of the Congressional ERA Caucus, has introduced a joint resolution that would remove the deadline for ratification of the amendment. Currently, the measure has 215 co-sponsors, three shy of a majority. But with Republicans in control of the House, a vote this year is unlikely. 

Advocates, however, will not give up. Even now, with an election fast approaching, Pressley and Maloney are trying to secure the 218 votes necessary for a discharge petition, which would force Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to bypass committees and bring the resolution to the House floor. Former U.S. Rep. Martha Griffiths (D-Mich.) used the same strategy to bring the ERA to the floor 52 years ago. Now, Maloney is heading a petition drive, Sign4ERA.org, that is gathering signatures to urge Congress to act. 

Feminist leaders might have a better chance next year. If congressional Democrats do well in November and if Vice President Harris becomes the first female president, they will press even harder for the equality that has eluded women all these decades.

“Given the decisions of the current Supreme Court, it is imperative—imperative—that our presidential nominee ensure gender equity through publishing the ERA,” said Walter, the actress. “And something tells me that she will make it a priority in her administration.”

Kamala Harris has changed the face of the upcoming presidential election. She also appears to be changing the face of this year’s electorate.

Even before accepting her party’s nomination Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention, polls showed that Harris’s candidacy was motivating large swaths of previously unenthused Americans to engage in the election and, if the trend holds, to vote. With her in the race, the electorate is likely to be younger, more female and more supportive of abortion rights than it would have been with President Biden as the Democratic nominee, polls have found.

“Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, compared to Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, is a sea change in overall motivation,” said Melissa Williams, executive director of a Super PAC for EMILYs List, which recruits, trains and finances Democratic women who support abortion rights. In the eight days after Biden withdrew from the race and passed the torch to Harris, the motivation to vote among people in five battleground states jumped 42 points, from 37 percent to 79 percent, according to a poll conducted for EMILYs List and released during the Chicago convention. 

The shift in enthusiasm was even greater among women, especially women between the ages of 18 and 44. Only 33 percent of all women and a moribund 18 percent of those under 45 had been motivated to vote when Biden was still in the race. Since Democratic candidates need a strong showing from women to overcome Republicans’ traditional dominance among men, that augured poorly for the president’s reelection chances. Once Harris replaced him as the likely nominee, women’s motivation to vote shot up 49 points to 82 percent, EMILYs List reported. Women under 45, meanwhile, showed an astounding 57-point increase, to 75 percent.

The same poll, conducted in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, found that in the first week of her race, Harris demonstrated that she is much more likely than Biden to win votes from those newly motivated women. Fifty percent of female respondents said they supported her, compared to 39 percent who said they backed Biden before he dropped out in July. Again Harris showed the greatest gains among younger women. Slightly more than half—52 percent—of women under 45 said they backed her, compared to just 30 percent who supported Biden. 

At the same time, Harris maintained Biden’s level of 37 percent support among men. “She’s 11 points better among women without losing a single vote among men,” said Jill Normington, whose firm conducted the poll.

“The gender gap is on steroids right now,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.  

Harris is reaping benefits from her leadership on abortion rights, even though the bulk of Americans don’t necessarily associate her with the issue yet. More than three-quarters (77 percent) of people who identify as “strongly pro-choice” told pollsters they would vote for the vice president, compared to 60 percent who said they favored Biden. “She is a much better messenger on one of the key issues of this election cycle,” Normington said. 

In sharp contrast to previous national elections, abortion will weigh heavily on this presidential contest, the first since the Supreme Court sent abortion decisions back to the states two years ago. The candidates could not be further apart. 

Former President Trump glorifies his role in overturning Roe v. Wade by nominating three anti-abortion Supreme Court justices. But most Republicans, who have long worked to limit or prohibit abortion, are shying away from the issue because it is likely to cost them votes. A full 85 percent of respondents told Gallup in May that abortion should be legal in all or some circumstances, compared to 12 percent who said it should be illegal in all circumstances.  

Harris and the entire Democratic Party are positioning themselves as champions of women—the only group of Americans ever to have lost a constitutional right.

The party put abortion front and center on each of the four nights of its convention. During prime time, speaker after speaker attacked Trump for failing women and girls. Elected officials and candidates pledged to fight to restore abortion rights nationwide. And several women and their partners shared emotional, scary, personal stories illustrating the challenges and dangers wrought by states that have banned or restricted abortion.

Like many Democratic women on hand for Harris’s Thursday night convention speech, Pamela Castellana, of Melbourne, FL, dressed in suffragist white from head to toe. The only color in her ensemble was the blue message on her white sash, declaring, “VOTES FOR WOMEN.” 

Castellana, chair of the Brevard County Democratic Party, said she feels confident that abortion “will get more people out to vote from all parties.” That will be particularly true in states like Florida, which have abortion initiatives on their ballots. “It will help the party that cares the most about women’s freedom to make decisions about their health care, and that’s the Democratic Party today,” she said.

Normington echoed that sentiment. Abortion is “the number one best thing that we can say to the voters. It is the most persuasive thing,” she said. “It is important in urban communities, suburban communities, in rural communities, among voters at the oldest of the spectrum and the youngest end of the spectrum. It helps in the middle of the ideological spectrum, and it helps our base.”

The Democratic Party’s base is made up of many groups, but it starts with women. In 2020, 57 percent of women and 45 percent of men voted for Biden, a 12-point gender gap, according to exit polls. (Numbers vary depending on the poll, but not significantly.) Trump won the support of just 42 percent of women, but a majority (53 percent) of men. 

In other words, women put Biden in office. 

But not all women. Biden won over just 44 percent of white women, compared to a full 90 percent of Black women and 69 percent of Latinas and Asian American women. 

This same pattern has existed for decades. When Democrats win the presidency, it is usually because of their support among women. 

Not only do women vote for Democrats more than do men, they register to vote and cast their votes in greater proportions.  

And because women make up the majority of the population, the voting booth is one place where they can wield more power than men.

Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton made history as the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party. A proud feminist, she embraced the trailblazing nature of her campaign, portraying it as a quest to break the “highest, hardest glass ceiling.” But winning the popular vote still didn’t enable her to shatter the glass. A greater equality, the dream of generations of women, remained just that—a dream. Another woman would have to make it come true.

This week, in what might have been the waning days of her second term, Clinton declared in a full-throated speech at the Democratic National Convention, that “the future is here.” It is Kamala Harris, she said, who can smash that centuries-old ceiling once and for all.

Vice President Harris, a strong feminist in her own right, is running less as a female candidate than as a nominee who just happens to be a woman—and a woman of color, at that. Democrats, overwhelmingly jubilant at their Chicago nominating convention, told me that they think it’s a winning strategy. Times have changed since 2016, they said. 

Have they?

It is true that Harris isn’t burdened by the baggage that Clinton carried, female-centric stereotypes that stuck to her like gum to a shoe, dating from her years as first lady, senator and secretary of state. Harris is something of a blank slate who is re-introducing herself to the American people in a way that, Democrats hope, they will find both positive and palatable.

Yes, palatable. Even in 2024, women candidates — like all women in positions of power — must come across as not only competent, right and smart, but as palatable. Another word for that is “likable.” During Clinton’s campaign in 2016, many voters told pollsters and journalists (including this one) that they’d vote for a woman, “just not that woman.” It’s a common refrain that is being put to the test yet again.

Still, the obstacle of “running while female” might be ameliorated by some big things that have happened since Clinton sought the White House, convention delegates, pollsters and women’s advocates told me.

One is the presidency of Donald Trump.

Another is the Jan. 6 insurrection, Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the potential for history to repeat itself.

But perhaps the most powerful development is the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, an unpopular decision that helped Democrats avert a predicted “red wave” in the 2022 midterm elections and led to successful state initiatives (with more ballot measures in the pipeline) to protect abortion rights.

While acknowledging that she is “still heartbroken” about Clinton’s loss, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told me in an interview that the country is in a different place now than it was eight years ago. In 2016, voters didn’t have a full understanding of “how awful” Trump was, she said. “We know now, and he’s even promised to be worse than he was before,” Pelosi said. “I don’t know that he keeps promises, but it’s scary. So I think that the reality of what the actual contrast is between the two candidates is much clearer now in terms of how damaging it is to our country.”

Additionally, Pelosi told me that Clinton—and even Pelosi herself, as the first and, to date, only female speaker, “paved the way” for Harris to win. “And when we do [win], she will be a great president. And it so happens, she’ll be a woman president, she’ll be a woman of color president, but she will be the best president,” Pelosi said. “That will be icing on the cake.”

As for abortion, Pelosi said succinctly: “It’s everything.”

Indeed, reproductive rights and, more specifically, the need to protect and restore them, were mentioned by the vast majority of convention speakers, from everyday Americans to former presidents and first ladies to celebrities. Women and men who live in states that have banned or restricted abortion access shared painful stories of near-death experiences when pregnancies became nonviable and women were denied the care they needed.

Oprah Winfrey called those who are telling about such travails “the new freedom fighters.” Gesturing to her body, Winfrey declared: “Because if you do not have autonomy over this, if you cannot control when and how you choose to bring your children into this world and how they are raised and supported, there is no American dream.”

That Trump nominated the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe, that he brags that he is responsible for a decision he falsely says most Americans wanted, that the ruling could lead to further restrictions on reproductive rights, will be a major theme of the Harris campaign. 

Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, noted that soon after the Court took away the right to choose in 2022, his state moved to protect abortion rights. In Minnesota, he said during his convention speech, “we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make. And even if we wouldn’t make those same choices for ourselves, we’ve got a golden rule: Mind your own damn business.”

Clearly, Democrats have found their voice on abortion in a way that they hadn’t before. Polls explain why. In May, fully 85 percent of respondents told Gallup, a nonpartisan polling firm, that abortion should be legal in all or some circumstances. Only 12 percent said it should be illegal in all circumstances. That and other, similar polls also explain why abortion was not a hot topic at the Republican National Convention a few weeks ago.

Delegates to the Democratic convention were optimistic about their second female nominee, though it’s easy to be swept up by the excitement of a festive four-day event featuring the likes of Stevie Wonder, John Legend and Winfrey, not to mention such Democratic icons as the Obamas, the Clintons and a slew of up-and-comers.

“I think the country is absolutely ready for a woman president,” Anne Schaeffer, an Illinois lobbyist and former legislative assistant, told me. “This campaign offers a lot of inspiration and a lot of connection.”

“Are you feeling the energy?” asked Mary Fosse, a state representative from Everett, Wash., who was sporting a red, white and blue “Cowboy Kamala” sash and a cowboy hat in deference to Beyonce’s latest album, Cowboy Carter. “I have not felt this kind of energy and vigor in so many years. … Kamala Harris has this appeal to women and people who have diverse backgrounds. People see themselves in her.”

Alabama state Sen. Merika Coleman went to the convention hall in a sparkly red-and-blue hat with a silver star and a pin bearing a picture of Harris.

 “It’s amazing to be part of history,” said Coleman, chair of her state’s Legislative Black Caucus. “We had an amazing opportunity with Hillary Clinton…. Kamala Harris is one of the most qualified people ever to run for president of the United States. She just happens to be a woman. She just happens to be a Black woman. She just happens to be an Asian woman.”

The question now is whether Harris will be the first female president or just another woman to hit her head on the glass.