Planned Parenthood announces record-breaking $45 million campaign to oust Trump, flip Senate in 2020

Oct. 9--Planned Parenthood is gearing up for a historic election cycle.

The reproductive rights group's super PAC announced a record-shattering $45 million campaign Wednesday aimed at unseating President Trump and flipping the Senate blue in 2020.

The political investment is the largest ever made by Planned Parenthood Votes in a single election cycle. The organization's executive director, Kelley Robinson, said the massive campaign is needed to counteract what she described as an unprecedented attack on reproductive rights in the U.S.

"Next November, our very rights and freedoms will be on the ballot," Robinson said in a statement. "Already, we've seen Trump and his buddies in Congress and state legislatures do everything they can to strip us of our rights and access to health care. Who we elect will determine our access to birth control, cancer screenings, sex education, abortion access and more."

First off, Robinson said her organization's effort will target key battleground states critical for winning the White House, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Secondly, the group will target vulnerable GOP senators in a bid to reclaim a Democratic majority in the Senate.

"Planned Parenthood Votes will use every tool at our disposal to hit the pavement, flood the airwaves, and elect reproductive rights champions up and down the ballot," Robinson said. "We know this is a fight we can win. Americans simply do not support attacks on their reproductive health care and rights -- and they are outraged at what Trump and other politicians are doing."

Trump has successfully appointed two conservative-leaning justices to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, prompting Republican state legislators across the country to introduce a volley of bills seeking to undermine abortion access.

The strategy, according to Planned Parenthood, appears to be to flood court dockets with anti-abortion legislation in hopes that the issue goes all the way up to the Supreme Court, which may in turn rescind the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which effectively legalized the procedure nationwide.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and advocacy group, more than 300 bills seeking to roll back abortion rights have been introduced in state legislatures across the country.

Robinson said she's putting lawmakers responsible for such bills on notice.

"To all the politicians working to take away our rights and undermine access to health care -- you've been warned," she said. "We are fired up, we are engaged, and we are going to win."

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