of failing businesses getty

Attention, leaders: your workforce is disengaged, and that's a major business problem. Disengaged employees are costing your organizationand the world$8.8 trillion in lost productivity, roughly the equivalent to nine percent of the global GDP, according to Gallup's State of The Global Workplace 2023 report.

The costs are too significant to be ignored. This problem is of utmost importance to current and aspiring leaders of today, who must be equipped with not only the technical skills needed for leadership, such as analytical skills or project management, but also soft skills such as knowing how to connect with and effectively engage one's team to deliver exceptional results in line with business objectives. It also underscores the lack of healthy, productive work cultures, which often goes back to the lack of effective leadership skills training.

So how does one develop the leadership skill of employee motivation? How can you create a culture where everyone feels respected and valued, and that their input matters?

The first step is to remember that as a manager or leader, you are not solely in charge of everything. For people to feel like they are being treated as respectable and intelligent humans, you need to create an environment where they can feel heard and that their opinions matter.

Establish a project vision or a long term goal for your department, and get your team involved in brainstorming and being part of the creation of the team vision. This makes them feel more accountable and empowers them to take greater responsibility over their work, knowing the impact it will have on the vision they themselves created.

The next step you can take to develop this skill is to challenge your team and stretch them outside their comfort zones regularly. Let's be honest, we all face those periods when our work can get a little boring and monotonous, especially during seasons of less activity due to market changes or projects winding down.

Your goal as a leader or manager should be to maintain a continual high of engagement through providing an array of stretch projects, learning opportunities, and cross-functional team collaboration. Even role-swapping sometimes helps to boost excitement and quality participation.

Leading the workforce in 2024 requires a dynamic approach to keep multiple generations engaged. Gen Z and Millennials, for example, who are set to represent the largest share of the workforce by 2030, prize employers who are values-driven. They want leaders who not only talk about their values on the company mission statement or at all-hands meetings, but are actively creating and engaging in programs that advocate these values within their workplace culture.

What values matter the most?

Climate action and sustainability efforts, work life balance, social impact, and wellbeing and DEI are just a few of their key priorities, reveals research undertaken by Deloitte in 2023. The survey, which gathered feedback from more than 22,000 Gen Z and Millennial respondents in 44 countries to explore their attitudes about work, revealed that they evaluate these qualities in a prospective employer even more highly than their salary, despite inflation and rising costs of living.

Is your leadership style securing the wholehearted, energetic participation from each member of your team? Are you listening to their needs and challenging them to grow?

As a LinkedIn Top Voice and the 24-year-old Founder and CEO of Rachel Wells Coaching, I am passionate about unlocking career and leadership potential for millennial professionals. I am a corporate career coach with 10 years of experience. My clients range from professionals at graduate to senior executive level, in both the public and private sectors. I have coached clients in more than seven countries globally and counting, and I've also directed teams and operations in my previous roles as public sector contract manager, to deliver large-scale national educational, career development, and work-readiness programs across the UK. Currently, I am building AI Forward, an exciting start-up that equips professionals and leaders to effectively use AI in their departments and individual professions, relevant to career and business goals. You can find out more and be among the first to access the platform when it launches in late summer 2024 by visiting my website.

Continue reading here:
3 Steps To Build The Leadership Skill Of Employee Motivation - Forbes

The beginning of a new year serves as an opportunity for reflection and change. As we enter 2024, now is an ideal time to evaluate our mindsets and eliminate habits hindering our potential for entrepreneurship, success, and motivation. An individuals mindset plays a critical role in approaching challenges and opportunities. The proper growth-oriented mindset and necessary behavioral changes make immense personal and professional growth possible.

This article provides actionable recommendations on modifying unconstructive patterns related to comfort zones, self-care and mental health, and receptiveness to change. By putting these suggestions into consistent practice, readers can overcome significant obstacles to success in 2024 and beyond. The following case study will showcase the transformative results possible when dedication to positive change converges with an enabling shift in mindset.

An individuals mindset refers to their psychological lens for interpreting and responding to situations. Those with a fixed mindset believe personal qualities like intelligence and talent cannot be developed. In contrast, those with a growth mindset understand that dedication and strategic effort over time will allow for tremendous evolution of even innate capabilities.

Studies consistently show that fostering a growth mindset markedly improves outcomes in entrepreneurship and beyond by enabling persistence, creative problem-solving, and higher performance in the face of setbacks. An adaptive and motivation-driven mindset becomes critical as the challenges of operating a successful venture intensify.

Economic uncertainty, complex technologies, competitive threats navigating the increasingly intricate business landscape of 2024 demands focused self-improvement for entrepreneurs and professionals alike. Maintaining outdated mindsets that restrict responses to adversity and change will no longer suffice.

The forthcoming sections provide explicit areas where developing greater self-awareness and constructive mindsets will empower personal and entrepreneurial success stories.

While seeming safe and familiar, comfort zones restrict opportunities for the expansive growth that builds self-confidence and new capabilities. For example, consider an introverted entrepreneur who exclusively relies on digital communication to avoid in-person client meetings, even though these interactions would greatly benefit business relationships.

Here are potential techniques for gaining comfort in unfamiliar territory:

Consistently prioritizing health and well-being cultivates the necessary physical, emotional, and mental foundations for effectively handling entrepreneurial challenges. Chronic stress damages cognitive functions essential for decision-making, planning, and managing a team.

Sufficient sleep, regular exercise, healthy social connections, and engaging hobbies refresh the mind, enhancing creativity, resiliency, and productivity over extended time frames. Minimizing anxiety and depression enhances leadership capabilities as well.

Dedicate set portions of each weekday towards nonwork-related self-care through these best practices:

As exponential technological advances transform professional capabilities and infrastructure on yearly timescales, change has become the only constant. Resisting this accelerating pace of change in favor of inflexible perspectives or dated skill sets leads rapidly toward stagnation and irrelevance.

Thankfully, a learning mindset focused on growth and improvement can be systematically built through techniques like:

To illustrate the power of focused self-improvement, meet John, an experienced yet overwhelmed founder struggling with his latest entrepreneurial endeavor in 2023 despite previous successes. By fundamentally shifting their mindset and taking action, John greatly enhanced well-being and venture progress.

First, John overcame reliance on comfortable isolation by actively networking at in-person conferences and building self-confidence one conversation at a time. He took breaks for leisure and reflection, allowing creative insights to emerge and recharge his focus organically. Finally, John eagerly educated himself on Web3 applications and AI, implementing cutting-edge solutions to differentiate his product offerings substantially.

Through purposefully changing behavior, John began 2024 with an empowered mindset, refreshed purpose, and company growth living proof that small, consistent actions compound over time towards enormous breakthroughs.

As 2024s landscape materializes through emerging technologies, economic shifts, and global interconnectivity, personal adaptability and intentional growth have become indispensable to those seeking entrepreneurial success. Avoid stagnation by stopping the outdated habits outlined here regarding comfort zones, health neglect, and closed-mindedness.

Instead, fully embrace the momentum of positive change. Set aside excuses that progress requires innate talent cultivating skills and mindsets through consistent effort and self-awareness alone can unlock doors once seeming impassable. Anticipate the changing tides of 2024 not with anxiety but eager anticipation, charting a course towards horizons beyond past limits.

The transformations required by todays rapidly evolving entrepreneurial climate are not easy, but rewards persist for those bold enough to confront the necessary self-improvements head-on. Dedication, personal capabilities, and professional opportunities can also be continually renewed.

View original post here:
3 Things You Need To Stop Doing In 2024 (Mindset, Motivation, and Success for the Entrepreneur) - New Trader U

Elon Musk WikiCC

Elon Musk is an odd character, to say the least. His erratic behaviour, megalomania and the constant stream of bullshit promises should, by all merit, destroy any company he is attached to. But the opposite is true; these career-ending attributes have created an air of mystique around him, painting him out to be a misunderstood genius years ahead of his time, and as such, a fever pitch of hysteria surrounds him, Tesla, SpaceX and all his other forgotten side projects. But occasionally, this fog clears, and we get to see the true Elon. Such a mask-off moment happened recently when Musk effectively threatened to dramatically devalue Tesla unless he is given $81 billion worth of Tesla stock for free Yeah, lets unpack that.

In a recent Tweet (or Xeet? Change it back Elon, X is a dumb name), the Tesla CEO said that he would be uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I cant be overturned. Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla. You dont seem to understand that Tesla is not one startup but a dozen. Simply look at the delta between what Tesla does and GM. Why this demand? Well, Musk also stated that the current structure leaves Tesla vulnerable to a takeover by dubious interests, and as he sees his AI development at Tesla as highly risky, he wants more control to avoid AI disasters in the future. More on that in a second.

** Quick interruption, if you want more from me, or to interact with me, go follow me on Bluesky, X, or Substack**

But, once upon a time, Musk had close to this level of voting control. In 2014, he owned roughly 22% of Tesla stocks and therefore had 22% of the voting rights as Tesla has a single-class share structure, which Musk decided on when he took the company public (remember that for later). But he has sold billions of dollars worth of this stock over time, most notably to pay for his inane $44 billion purchase of Twitter. Now, Musk has only around a 13% stake in Tesla, which still makes him the majority shareholder and one of the wealthiest men in the world, but apparently, it is not enough.

The rest is here:
Musk Is Holding Tesla To Ransom. What is his real motivation? | by Will Lockett | Predict | Jan, 2024 - Medium

Motivational Monday: Positive Affirmations for Swimmers

Breathe in, breathe out. The moment has arrived. All swimmers know the feeling of having a big race in front of them. You stand behind the blocks, anxiously adjusting your cap and goggles. You count down the heats in front of you until its finally your turn to dive in. These few minutes of last-minute preparations are often filled with a boatload of thoughts. These can be a swimmers saving grace or their method of self-destruction.

As cliche as it may sound, a positive mindset can go a long way in our sport. The swimmer who says I can and the swimmer who says I cant both usually turn out to be right. Therefore, when standing behind the blocks before a nerve-wracking race, it is important to make sure that the thoughts flowing through your head are constructive rather than destructive.

A great way to calm oneself down before a race is through the use of affirmations. An affirmation is a regularly repeated phrase that can help enforce a positive attitude. They can be as simple as I got this! or as lengthy as my fears and doubts are normal, and I am still capable of great things.

The next time you find yourself in that nervy position as the swimmer behind the block, remember these affirmations to help keep you in the right mindset.

I Am In Complete Control Over My Performance

This affirmation can be very useful in calming oneself down before a race. When it comes to being nervous, we usually focus on the what ifs. What if my goggles fall off? What if I cant execute my turns? What if I dont hit the right splits? This affirmation reminds us that despite all of these what ifs, we are the only ones in control of the outcome of a race. While outside factors may have an impact on our mindset, we ultimately are in control of our own destiny. This affirmation reminds us that we are in control, and nothing can stop us.

I Am Confident and Fearless In the Water

Sometimes, a fake-it-til-you-make-it attitude is all you need in order to be successful in the water. If you know that youve been off in training, this knowledge can bring down your personal morale. When we lose our own self-confidence, this can make us even more nervous for a big race. Therefore, even when we lack a sense of believing in ourselves, it can be helpful to tell ourselves that we are confident anyway. This affirmation allows us to embrace the fake-it-til-you-make-it mentality, and this can sometimes be the key to achieving a goal.

I Have the Mental Toughness To Overcome Any Setback

In our sport, disruptive things can happen. We may miss our warmup. Maybe the pre-race meal from the night before isnt sitting so well in your stomach. Or, we couldve forgotten our lucky pair of goggles. No matter what setbacks we may face on race day, no matter how big or small, we must have the mentality that we can overcome them. If we dwell on all of the negative things surrounding us, we are more likely to tank a race in the water. However, if we tell ourselves that we are mentally capable of overcoming these challenges, then a positive result is more likely. This affirmation can help a nervous swimmer who may have had a few disruptions on race day.

I Trust In My Abilities and Will Achieve Greatness

Maybe youre in the opposite situation as the swimmer described above. You put in loads of work, and everything went perfectly. You went through your warmup seamlessly and put on your racing suit without any rips. You ate your pre-race snack at just the right time. Still, as youre standing behind the blocks with the utmost sense of preparation, youre filled with anxiety. It is in these moments when we must learn to trust our training and have confidence in our abilities. If we truly put in the work, then we simply need to have faith in our own abilities and know that we can achieve our goals. This affirmation can help reinforce self-confidence among a swimmer who may be extremely prepared yet still nervous.

I Am a Winner. I Have a Champions Mindset

Last but not least, this is an affirmation that every swimmer needs to hear. When were standing behind the blocks, no matter how nervous or prepared we may or may not be, it is critical to continually reinforce self-confidence. For a last minute jolt of confidence before a race, this affirmation may do the trick. Believing that you are a winner and embracing the champions mindset is important to swimmers looking to achieve their goals. Similar to what was said earlier, the swimmer who believes he/she to be a winner and the swimmer who believes he/she to be a loser are both usually correct.

Through the use of positive affirmations, swimmers can harness their nerves and build their self-confidence. Even in the last few moments before the biggest races, swimmers can rely on affirmations to keep them mentally sharp and ready to perform at their best.

Motivational Monday (7/3/23)

View post:
Motivational Monday: Positive Affirmations for Swimmers - Swimming World Magazine

yells to fire up the crowd before a playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs on Jan. 13, 2024. (Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

So impressed by Patrick Mahomes competitive fire at Texas Tech, former Kansas State Coach Bill Snyder sent him a personalized note. When he was the Kansas City Chiefs Offensive Coordinator, Eric Bieniemy called Mahomes a competitive (expletive).

Mahomes competitiveness is legendary.

Hell take any kind of slight like the Chicago Bears passing on him in the 2017 NFL Draft after telling him theyd pick him and use it as motivation. (He memorably counted to No. 10, where he was selected, after defeating them in 2019.)

So those noting Mahomes has never played in a true road playoff game in his 15 prior contests, almost suggesting hes had to benefit from an advantageous path, could add fuel to the fire.

For what its worth, Mahomes downplayed having extra incentive as he prepares to play the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round on Sunday night.

Im excited for it because, I mean, its one of the best environments in football, he said. Ive been lucky enough to play a lot of games at home at Arrowhead Stadium. It kind of just everythings fell that way. But now we get the great opportunity to go on the road.

Although it represents his first road playoff game, facing the Bills is nothing new for Mahomes.

This will be the seventh game between the Bills and Chiefs since the start of the 2020 season.

They have split the previous six, but the Chiefs have won both playoff games, including the memorable 42-36 contest in which the Chiefs sent the game into overtime on a remarkable field-goal drive with just 13 seconds left.

Weve played each other, Mahomes said, it seems like a hundred times over the last five years.

The last two meetings have been Bills wins at Arrowhead Stadium, but the Chiefs actually have a better record on the road (6-2) than at home this season.

Mahomes credits that record to Head Coach Andy Reid keeping everyone on an even keel.

Thats important on the road because it seems like one bad play is even magnified more, and a big play is magnified more, he said. Just staying with the process is something that Coach Reid preaches, and we do a great job of it.

Reids Chiefs have ended the Bills 2020 and 2021 seasons.

So perhaps there is added motivation for Josh Allen too.

Theres certainly added intrigue because it matches two of the NFLs best quarterbacks.

They also have similar contracts at least in terms of average annual value. Mahomes average ranks eighth in the NFL, averaging $45 million on his 10-year, $450 million deal, and Allens ranks ninth, averaging $43 million on his six-year, $258 million contract.

The similarly-paid quarterbacks are also friends.

In fact, they were teammates at Capital Ones The Match. Quarterbacks Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers defeated them, eking out the victory in the 12-hole, alternate shot, match play at the Wynn Golf Club in Paradise, Nev.

When you compete against your friends, you almost want to win even more because of it, Mahomes said. Josh is a great dude. I respect the way he plays football and just the guy that he is. But its like when two guys that are ultracompetitive that are friends off the field go up against each other; we obviously both want to win. We know we see each other in the offseason, and you want to have a little bit of those bragging rights.

Mahomes has faced his friend in the playoffs twice before, but Sundays game represents the first in Buffalo.

The Bills are a great challenge, Mahomes said. We understand that were going to have to play our best football to win the game especially at their place.

I have written for Packers.com, Pro Football Weekly, ESPN The Magazine, the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World and Rivals.com. After graduating from Northwestern University, I interned for the Buffalo Bills, where my duties included bedchecks during training camp. I have worked for two NFL teams and covered the NFL Draft, the NFL International Series, the Super Bowl and everything in between. During my football playing days at Pembroke Hill (Mo.) School, I was known for my bad knees and even worse blocking. Born and raised in Kansas City, I now live in Chicago but still have Winsteads grease coursing through my veins. Follow me on Twitter @JFedotin

Read this article:
Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes Brings Extra Motivation To His First Playoff Game On The Road - Forbes

Inter Milan Coach Declares That Motivation Will Be What Matters In Supercoppa Italiana Final Vs Napoli  SempreInter.com

Follow this link:
Inter Milan Coach Declares That Motivation Will Be What Matters In Supercoppa Italiana Final Vs Napoli - SempreInter.com

The FBI is out with a warning to parents about a rise in sextortion crimes that have been reported in recent years.

The FBI is out with a warning to parents about a rise in sextortion crimes that have been reported in recent years. But more and more often, its not sexual gratification thats behind the demand for pictures, and its not always young girls who are being pressured into providing more graphic content.

Instead, crooks living overseas are asking their victims for money, and their targets tend to be teenage boys who might not have a lot. The FBI said it received over 13,000 reports for those types of crimes just between October of 2021 and March of 2023, and at least 20 of the victims ended up committing suicide after they were targeted.

Often times, the crooks have posed as teenage girls while scamming people from not just the United States, but various countries in west Africa, Southeast Asia and the rest of the world.

Supervisory Special Agent Amy Ferron, who investigates crimes against children for the FBIs Baltimore Field Office, said it all happens faster than you think.

It may be one image, and thats all it takes, Ferron said. Within seconds or a minute, theyve issued a threat.

Most of the time, victims are between 14 and 17 years old, but theyve been as young as 11. Asking prices can start out in the thousands of dollars and get negotiated down, but the threat that the pictures will be sent to friends and family or just posted online, will always be there. Theres no buying your way out of it.

What really happens next is they say they want more money, Ferron said. If they did send some money, then they might come after them looking for more money. So theres really no way to satisfy the offenders demands.

Its a trend thats been noticed by online safety groups as well.

This is criminal gangs that have figured out a way to extract money from boys and young men in a way that we just hadnt seen before, said Stephen Balkam, founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute. Its a financial exchange that the gangs are looking for, rather than what weve always thought about with sexting.

He said an added difficulty is the tendency of boys to shut down and keep the problem to themselves out of shame.

Agent Ferron said kids can be approached on just about any platform, whether its social media, messaging apps or even online video games. She said its important for parents to start talking to their kids about this even earlier than you might think is necessary, since kids are getting phones, tablets and playing online games at younger and younger ages.

Theres unfortunately this mass group of victims that can be found pretty much anywhere there is an internet connection, application platform, gaming systems, you name it, Ferron said. Wherever theres some capability to be able to connect with people from all over the world, you can find predators that may be looking for vulnerable victims.

One of the things Ferron stressed was the need for teens to be skeptical when someone suggests taking the conversation to a different platform where more privacy is afforded.

Another platform is going to allow them to be able to send that material back and forth, Ferron said. So we say thats a big red flag, if someone is trying to move you to another platform, thats where you want to at least have a little more scrutiny. Proceed with caution. We want to say dont do it. Go tell an adult.

It starts by having conversations you may not be ready for, and not just because it involves sex.

Oftentimes, parents are actually even more prepared to talk about sex to their kids than they are about technology because they feel somewhat at a loss or at a disadvantage, Balkam said. But its just a must-have conversation and a way of explaining to your kids what your values are as a family, what you do and dont expect from them, and the privilege of having a phone.

And Ferron said the last thing you want to do is blame the child and get upset with them.

These are kids. Theyre minors. Theres a ton of different chemical things that are going on, particularly with boys in this situation, she said. They cant project out, maybe see around corners, the brains are just not fully developed yet to be able to make those determinations.

Ferron added, You have to have an environment where they feel comfortable and safe to come and talk to you about this.

Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

Read more:
FBI reports big rise in sextortion and the targets and motivation might surprise you - WTOP

BOSTON Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said he didnt hear anyone talking about Dec. 22 before the game, but still he felt it.

On that night in Southern Manitoba, the Jets dealt Boston its third straight and the worst defeat in a four-game losing streak, 5-1.

The Jets outshot, outhit, out-faceoffed and straight-up outplayed the Bruins that night.

They embarrassed us the last time at Winnipeg, Montgomery said.

Exactly a month later, the Bruins and Jets met again at TD Garden on Monday. Montgomery was confident going in that his team would answer the bell.

We have a lot of proud guys whove represented the Bruins for a long time in a good way. I think the opportunity to get back at them was something that was motivating to them, he said. Its something thats part of the culture here.

The Bruins proved him right. They paid back the defeat by snapping the Jets 13-game streak of allowing no more than two goals and their 34-game streak of not more than three. They scored two in the first and two in the third, including an empty-net goal to win 4-1.

That was a game plan of ours. We dont like losing twice in a row. The momentum we had from last game and the start of this homestand was something we wanted to continue, said Jeremy Swayman, whose 21 saves were critical. As you saw from the first to the last whistle, excellent Bruins hockey. Really special stuff we can build on.

While it wasnt as physical as a playoff game is likely to be, for 54 minutes it was low-scoring and tight. After dropping nine goals on the hapless Habs on Saturday, this game demanded more.

Thats playoff hockey to be honest, said Jake DeBrusk who added a critical short-handed goal late to seal the win. Its probably not as physical or intense, but tight checking and low scoring is what youre going to see when it counts. Anytime you can get any ground in terms of confidence from winning these type of games it really helps everybody in the group.

Montgomery agreed.

It was nice. Weve had a lot of games here recently where weve been scoring goals, Montgomery said. It was nice to have a 2-1 lead going into the third and extend the lead again.

All betting sites in MA will have promo codes for signing up. Dont forget to check out BetMGM Massachusetts and DraftKings Massachusetts.

See the original post:
Why the Bruins were extra motivated to beat the Jets - MassLive.com

News Corp Australia uses software that manages crawler bot traffic on our websites. If you receive this message and are not a crawler bot (and are just a reader or subscriber), please try these steps first:

Your IP address is: 66.45.249.130 | Your reference number is: 0.161bd017.1706081624.1c8c758a

News Corp Australia.

Read more here:
Sam Wood reveals his surprising secret to staying motivated this year - Body+Soul

WASHINGTON | When Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said recently that he was proud to have a hand in overturning the abortion protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake took it as a political gift, thinking to herself, Oh my God, we just won the election.

It may not be that simple, but as the 2024 race heats up, President Joe Bidens campaign is betting big on abortion rights as a major driver for Democrats in the election. Republicans are still trying to figure out how to talk about the issue, if at all, and avoid a political backlash.

A vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is a vote to restore Roe, and a vote for Donald Trump is a vote to ban abortion across the country, said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Bidens campaign manager. These are the stakes in 2024.

Since Roe was overturned in 2022, voters have pushed back by approving a number of statewide ballot initiatives to preserve or expand the right to abortion. Support for abortion rights drove women to the polls during the 2022 midterm elections, delivering Democrats unexpected success. For many people, the issue took on higher meaning, part of an overarching concern about the future of democracy, according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 94,000 voters in the midterm elections.

Democrats have since worked to broaden how they talk to voters about the Supreme Courts decision, delivered by a conservative majority that included three justices nominated by Trump, and what it means for peoples access to health care and their personal freedoms.

The Biden campaign is launching a nationwide political push this coming week centered on Mondays 51st anniversary of the 1973 decision that codified abortion rights. Vice President Kamala Harris, the administrations chief messenger on this, will hold the first event Monday in Wisconsin.

On Tuesday, Biden, Harris, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff head to Virginia for a campaign stop focused on the issue. More events featuring top Democrats in battleground states are also in the works.

The campaign on Sunday released a advertising campaign scheduled to run all week, including during The Bachelor season premiere and the NFL conference championships. The spot features Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Texas who had to leave her state to get an abortion when she learned that her baby had a fatal condition called anencephaly.

In Texas, you are forced to carry that pregnancy, and that is because of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade, she said.

Focusing on abortion will not be a silver bullet for Democrats. The economy, foreign policy, immigration and inflation are major issues, too, as is concern about Bidens age as he tries to overcome low poll numbers. Many voters are simply turned off by the prospect of a likely 2024 Trump-Biden rematch.

Still, Democrats believe abortion will be a key motivator for base voters and help expand their coalition. Biden aides and allies point to recent elections that have overwhelmingly shown that, when voters can choose, they have chosen to safeguard abortion rights.

The issue isnt vanishing from the headlines anytime soon, either. The Supreme Court will decide whether to restrict access to medication prescribed for abortion and to treat other reproductive issues. And there is an ongoing stream of stories about the impact of abortion bans, such as the mother who had to sue, then flee, her home state to end her doomed pregnancy.

Democrats spent decades trying to calibrate their message, always defending the right to choose while also making overtures to voters who are conflicted about the issue. President Bill Clintons mantra was that abortion should be safe, legal and rare.

But the loss of federal abortion protections has been a catalyst for a broader and bolder message about abortion and reproductive rights after the historic setback from the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization that overturned Roe.

We know that if we talk about this issue as a fundamental freedom, we are able to resonate across demographics older voters, younger voters, people of color, folks in rural areas, said Mini Timmaraju, head of Reproductive Freedom for All, formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Biden aides said the strategy is to let the president be who he is an 81-year-old Catholic man who doesnt use the word abortion much, preferring to talk instead about the issue in the context of personal freedom.

The White House often frames the fight as part of a larger battle that involves book bans, voting rights and other social issues. For more aggressive talk about abortion and how the ripple effects of the decision are affecting maternal health, theres Harris.

Timmaraju said those different messages resonate with different parts of the electorate.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Democrat and vocal advocate for abortion rights, said it would be good if Biden spoke more forcefully on the topic.

I think people want to know that this is a president that is fighting, Whitmer told CBS Face the Nation on Sunday. To use maybe more blunt language, maybe that would be helpful.

Since the high court overturned Roe, roughly 25 million women now live in states with some type of ban in effect. The impacts are increasingly felt by women who never intended to end their pregnancies, yet have had emergency medical care denied or delayed because of the new restrictions.

According to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, among Democrats, nearly nine in 10 say abortion should generally be legal. Four in 10 say it should be legal in all cases, and nearly half say it should be legal in most cases.

As for Republicans, the topic was largely absent in the lead-up to this years Iowa caucuses, a remarkable change in a state that has long backed religious conservatives vowing to restrict the procedure. Part of the change is because Republicans achieved a generational goal with the overturning of Roe. But it also underscores a fear among Republican candidates and voters alike that vocalizing their desire to further restrict abortion rights might be politically dangerous.

I am calling the time period we are in now the new fight for life,' said Benjamin Watson, a former NFL player who is now an anti-abortion advocate. Roe is done, but we still live in a culture that knows not how to care for life. Roe is done, but the factors that drive women to seek abortions are ever apparent and ever increasing.

Overall, opinions on abortion remain complex, with most people believing it should be allowed in some circumstances and not in others. About two-thirds of U.S. adults say abortion should generally be legal, but only about one-quarter say it should always be legal and only about 1 in 10 say it should always be illegal.

Trump has waffled on the topic. During a recent Fox News town hall, he expressed support for limited exceptions and criticized state laws that ban abortion after six weeks. But he also has promoted his own role.

For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it and Im proud to have done it, he said.

The Biden administration is nearing the limits of what it can do to preserve access to abortion absent congressional legislation. In the immediate aftermath June 24, 2022 Supreme Court decision, the administration quickly tried to flex its regulatory muscle to fight back against Republican efforts to severely restrict abortion. Many efforts have been challenged in court.

Biden had invited states with robust abortion access to apply for Medicaid waivers that would help pay for women to travel for the care. But so far, only California has applied to unlock federal money for the effort.

The top U.S. health official, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, is on a three-day East Coast tour to talk with doctors and medical students about access to abortion and birth control.

This is the beginning of an effort to reach out to all Americans, Becerra said, and say to the American people how important it is that we stand up at a crucial time.

Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston and Amanda Seitz and Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

View post:
Democrats believe abortion will motivate voters in 2024. Will it be enough? - Sentinel Colorado - Sentinel Colorado