Hillary Clinton says Democrats underestimated anti-abortion activists: 'We could have done more to fight'

Clinton said Democrats were "taken by surprise" by the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision and the tenacity of anti-abortion conservatives.

• Hillary Clinton said that Democrats didn't do enough to stop the demise of Roe.
• "We didn't take it seriously, and we didn't understand the threat," she told The New York Times.
• Ahead of November, abortion and reproductive rights are top of mind for many voters.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview for a forthcoming book, made some of her strongest remarks to date about the fall of Roe v. Wade, arguing that the Democratic Party underestimated the anti-abortion movement.

In advance of the June release of the book, "The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America," Clinton told The New York Times that Democrats believed that the court system and legal precedents would protect abortion rights — until the US Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that those rights were not protected by the Constitution.

"We didn't take it seriously, and we didn't understand the threat," Clinton, the party's 2016 presidential nominee, told the Times. "Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realize we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country."

"We could have done more to fight," she added.

The book, written by Times journalists Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, explores the decadeslong push to dismantle Roe v. Wade and the ramifications of its demise.

During the interview, Clinton lamented that Democrats were "taken by surprise" by the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. She argued that she never became complacent over the potential for a conservative-led Supreme Court to reverse Roe.

"One thing I give the right credit for is they never give up," she told the Times. "They are relentless. You know, they take a loss. They get back up. They regroup. They raise more money."

"It's tremendously impressive the way that they operate," she continued. "And we have nothing like it on our side."

Since the fall of Roe, Democrats have benefited in elections across the country, with many independents and even some Republicans backing ballot measures protecting abortion rights. And Democratic candidates fared much better than predicted in the 2022 midterms in part because they supported abortion rights, a position largely in line with suburban voters who have dramatically moved away from a GOP now controlled by former President Donald Trump.

Democrats plan to use the issue against Trump this year, telling voters that it was his Supreme Court appointments that have now caused a patchwork of abortion laws across the country — with some states enacting near-total abortion bans and others expanding access.

Trump has sought to moderate his views on the issue. He criticized a near-total abortion ban in Arizona that has since been repealed by the legislature.

But Clinton is warning that the conservative push to restrict abortion further will not abate.

"More people have got to wake up because this is the beginning," she told the Times. "They really want us to just shut up and go home. That's their goal."