Planned Parenthood on Thursday rolled out a sweeping campaign aiming to make abortion a focal point in the 2026 midterm elections and target the Republican Party’s slim majority in Congress.
Planned Parenthood Votes, an independent super PAC-affiliated with Planned Parenthood, is spending $47 million on the “We Decide” campaign to target vulnerable GOP hopefuls, including House and Senate Republican candidates in some of the closest races in the country. In Michigan, Planned Parenthood is looking to challenge former Rep. Mike Rogers’ Senate bid, while it has tentative plans to target Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) reelection campaign, among other battleground races.
Both states don’t have their Democratic Senate candidates decided yet, with primary-winner Graham Platner dropping out in Maine due to recent sexual assault allegations, and the primary not yet having been held in Michigan.
“We are ambitious, because really it’s an existential moment,” Planned Parenthood Votes executive director Sarah Standiford said. “This is a time where voters have an opportunity to take back our right to decide, our lives and our future state by state, and that really requires a scale of impact that is significant.”
The group is also spending millions on ads and voter-outreach efforts targeting Republicans across 10 battleground House races in seven states, according to Politico, with hopes of ousting Reps. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Tom Barrett (R-MI), Gabe Evans (R-CO), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IO), Mike Lawler (R-NY), David Valadao (R-CA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA), and Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ).
As part of its midterm campaign, Planned Parenthood is particularly looking to target Republicans who supported last year’s temporary cutoff of Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, a provision that was included in President Donald Trump’s landmark One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Republicans blocked the funding for one year, after expressing concern that federal funding to Planned Parenthood could find its way to funding abortions.
Planned Parenthood is the country’s largest abortion provider, having reportedly performed over 434,000 procedures in 2025. Federal funding is formally allocated toward the organization’s family planning and contraception services, which dominate the percentage of services Planned Parenthood provides.
But critics such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) worry that such funding is fungible.
“How does HHS ensure, in practice, that Title X funds do not subsidize abortion operations at grantee organizations that co-locate abortion and family planning services in the same facilities, given that money is fungible and every federal dollar offsets other operational costs?” Hawley questioned in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in April.
Planned Parenthood regained access to Medicaid funding over the weekend, but said that nearly 30 of its affiliated clinics were closed during the year it was frozen, citing the funding change as a key reason.
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Planned Parenthood has latched onto the saga, viewing it as an opportunity to target Republicans on an issue it believes has the power to change the dynamic of key races.
“Patients are facing fewer options for affordable care, as dozens of Planned Parenthood health centers around the country have been forced to close and congressional Republicans continue to play politics with the health and well-being of millions of Americans who rely on Planned Parenthood health centers for care,” Planned Parenthood Action Fund executive director Brianna Twofoot said in June. “Every cancer that goes undetected, every STI that goes untreated, every patient who can’t get birth control or abortion care when they need it — all of it is in the hands of the lawmakers who voted to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood and threaten to make it permanent.”