Planned Parenthood vows to spend $45M in 2020 to elect abortion-rights candidates

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Planned Parenthood, the behemoth nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care and is the nation’s largest abortion provider, says it’s making a major investment in the 2020 elections.

Planned Parenthood’s political wings – which fight for legal protections for abortion – announced Wednesday that they’ll spend $45 million backing candidates who support abortion rights in elections next year ranging from the state house level to the White House.

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“Planned Parenthood Votes and Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations are launching their largest-ever electoral effort for the 2020 cycle. We'll fight for our rights and freedoms down the ballot in 2020,” the organization tweeted.

The group says its top priority in 2020 is to defeat and unseat President Trump. Other priorities include helping Democrats retake control of the GOP-controlled Senate and holding the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.

The group will target roughly 5 million voters across the country, with the spotlight on nine key swing states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They add that their campaign will include digital, television and radio ads as well as direct mail. They say they’ll start voter canvassing next year.

Kelley Robinson, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Votes super PAC, emphasized in a statement that “next November, our very rights and freedoms will be on the ballot. 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.”

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And in an interview with NPR – which first reported the news – Robinson said that a "coordinated level of attack" from abortion-rights opponents has “one goal: to undermine and to gut Roe v. Wade."

Planned Parenthood has long been in the cross-hairs of the anti-abortion movement.

Since the election of Trump, the group was on the losing end of the battle to prevent the confirmation of Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh – which tilted the high court to the right. The Supreme Court announced last week that they'll take up their first abortion case since Kavanaugh's confirmation.

They were also on the losing end of a fight over family planning federal funding, while battling early-abortion bans passed by multiple states this year.

In August, the group announced it was pulling out of the Title X federal family planning program rather than abide by a new Trump administration rule prohibiting participants from referring patients for abortions.

Pro-life groups heralded the abrupt decision as a major victory -- and one that signaled that Planned Parenthood, contrary to its claims, is primarily an abortion provider, not a health care organization.

In response to the latest campaign spending announcement, March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said in a statement: “At its essence, Planned Parenthood is a political advocacy group with a focus on expanding abortion. It is no surprise that the abortion corporation is spending $45 million in battle ground states because this Administration has implemented a pro-life agenda in many areas ... It is unfair to force Americans to subsidize through their tax dollars this partisan political organization bent on electing pro-abortion politicians.”

Fox News' Gregg Re and The Associated Press contributed to this report.