Joe Biden went into the Thursday presidential debate with one ace in the hole: abortion. And somehow, in a fumbling and frail performance, the president managed to blow even that.
In the two years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, a decision joined by three justices nominated by Donald Trump, support for abortion has climbed even in red states. Republican strongholds like Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio have voted in favor of maintaining or even strengthening abortion rights; purple Michigan, a state Biden desperately needs to win, has too. The Biden campaign knows that abortion is a winning issue – that’s why it has dispatched the vice-president, Kamala Harris, on a nationwide, months-long tour to talk about it.
