Planned Parenthood To Target Gop With $47 Million Midterm Blitz

Planned Parenthood is pumping more than $47 million into the midterms as it looks to pick off Republicans who cut off funding to the abortion provider last year.

The near-record investment from Planned Parenthood Votes — an independent super PAC affiliated with Planned Parenthood — will fund ads and voter-outreach efforts targeting Republicans across 10 battleground House races in seven states, as well as in Maine and Michigan’s critical Senate contests, according to plans shared first with POLITICO.

That includes spending against GOP Sen. Susan Collins, though the group said it could reevaluate its plans depending on the outcome of the current situation in Maine, where embattled Democratic nominee Graham Platner suspended his campaign Wednesday. Many Democratic groups had pulled their support for Platner, including Planned Parenthood Action Fund, an advocacy arm of the reproductive health group that operates separately from the super PAC. The Maine Democratic Party is planning a nominating convention to replace him, and several candidates are already vying for the nod.

Planned Parenthood Votes’ push comes after congressional Republicans stripped Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding for one year as part of their 2025 megalaw, exacerbating the group’s cash woes and leading to a spate of clinic closures.

“We’re in the fight of our lives,” Sarah Standiford, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes, said in an interview. And she said the group will do everything it can to “elect unapologetic champions of reproductive freedom” and “make sure members of Congress who voted against Planned Parenthood lose their jobs.”

Collins opposed the megalaw that cut off Planned Parenthood funding. But her procedural vote to advance the bill, and her crucial vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which abortion-rights advocates view as the catalyst for overturning Roe v. Wade, has placed her high on the group’s target list. So, too, is former Rep. Mike Rogers, the likely GOP nominee in Michigan’s critical Senate race.

The group is also zeroing in on some of the most vulnerable House Republicans on the map, including GOP Reps. Bill Huizenga and Tom Barrett of Michigan, Gabe Evans of Colorado, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, Mike Lawler of New York, David Valadao of California, Brian Fitzpatrick and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania and Juan Ciscomani of Arizona. And it’s targeting the seat Rep. David Schweikert (D-Ariz.) is vacating to run for governor.

Planned Parenthood Votes is also wading into gubernatorial and state legislative races across Georgia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Michigan and Arizona as it looks to preserve access to reproductive care at the state level and break up GOP trifectas that could disrupt it.

The effort builds on ads Planned Parenthood’s advocacy arm has already been running against several at-risk House Republicans. And it comes as abortion has faded as a top issue for voters in the years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and states cemented their own policies to ban or protect abortion rights, a shift accelerated this year by cost of living concerns that are dominating surveys.

But the group believes abortion-rights messaging still has salience. They pointed to recent polling from the Democratic firm Navigator Research that shows pluralities of Americans view banning abortions and cutting federal funding for Planned Parenthood as disqualifying positions.

“For millions of Americans, abortion is not a hypothetical election issue, it is part of their everyday lives,” Standiford said. “Abortion and defunding Planned Parenthood are not just highly mobilizing, they are in fact dealbreakers for voters across the political spectrum, and that’s how we’re going to be talking to voters about this issue.”

Congressional Republicans blocked Planned Parenthood from accessing what amounted to $700 million annually for non-abortion services like contraception and cancer screenings under the megalaw. But Republicans failed to muster the votes to extend the provision, and when the law lapsed in early July, the network of clinics regained access to hundreds of millions in federal funding.

It’s a lifeline for the organization, which had to shut down nearly 30 clinics over the past year. But Planned Parenthood remains on high alert, fearful that Congress could try to pass a party-line bill that revives the Medicaid funding ban later this year or in 2027 if Democrats fail to flip control of at least one chamber.

Even as abortion has slipped as a top issue for voters, advocacy groups on both sides of the ongoing fight over reproductive care are pouring tens of millions into gubernatorial, congressional and further down-ballot races. Planned Parenthood Votes’ $47 million investment is its second-highest ever, just shy of the $50 million the group spent in 2022.

Another abortion-rights group, Reproductive Freedom for All, plans to spend $23.5 million this year — the most it’s ever invested in a midterm election — with a heavy focus on “independents, soft Republicans, and split-ticket voters” in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and California “whose support for abortion access puts them at odds with Trump and his endorsed candidates,” the group told POLITICO.

Meanwhile, the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America plans to spend at least $80 million this year to elect abortion opponents to state and federal office.

Both sides are also investing heavily in the next round of ballot initiatives that could determine whether millions of people can terminate a pregnancy. Efforts are underway to pass constitutional amendments protecting abortion access in Idaho, Nevada and Virginia, while a measure on Missouri’s ballot could ban the procedure by overturning a previous voter initiative that passed in 2024.