Abortion’s Staying Power as a Political Issue Fuels Election Night Wins for Democrats - Horowitz
Rób Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
Abortion’s Staying Power as a Political Issue Fuels Election Night Wins for Democrats - Horowitz
In Virginia, Democrats took back the House of Delegates and held on to majority control of the State Senate. In doing so, they beat back a well-funded, all-out effort by the popular Republican Governor Glenn Younkin. In New Jersey, Democrats increased their majority in the State Assembly and maintained their State Senate one, flipping a net total of 5 seats. These victories reversed gains made by the Republicans in the 2021 elections-contests that were held before Roe v. Wade was overturned. And in bright red Kentucky--where Donald Trump won 62% of the vote in 2020--Democratic Governor Andy Beshear bested Daniel Cameron, the state attorney general by about 5 percentage points. This was a marked improvement on his 2019 performance, when he barely squeaked by the unpopular Republican incumbent Matt Bevin.
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Abortion rights were at the center of all these victories. Democratic candidates and party committees spent a high percentage of their advertising dollars in all 3 states driving home the contrast between their commitment to fight to safeguard abortion rights and the Republicans’ plans to take those rights away, sometimes even in cases of rape or incest.
Governor Youngkin’s high-profile and well-funded efforts in Virginia to counter with a 15-week abortion ban--which was closely watched by national Republicans to see if it provided a way to neutralize the issue--failed to temper the Democratic advantage. “Democrats ran largely on preserving abortion access, launching a wave of ads that declared a vote for their party was a vote to stop Youngkin from passing his proposal to ban most abortions after 15 weeks,” reported the Virginia Mercury.“Youngkin had portrayed that plan as a reasonable “limit” because it would have allowed exceptions for cases of rape and incest and when the mother’s life or physical health is at risk”.
Similarly, New Jersey Democrats made abortion rights a major part of what turned out to be the winning difference. An outrageous and politically unwise social media post by Republican State Senator Edward Durr, for instance, was not only used to defeat the first-term Republican, but also to batter other Republican candidates. “Democrats used a 2020 social media post by Durr (R-Gloucester) that women should “close their legs’’ as an albatross against Republicans around the state, while a Planned Parenthood Super PAC warned that New Jerseyans were “just one election away from losing abortion access,” reported Politico.
Along the same lines, the most powerful campaign advertisement aired by Governor Beshear in Kentucky featured a woman who was raped by her stepfather, challenging the Republican candidate about his then support for a ban on abortion with no exceptions."Anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what it's like to stand in my shoes," the woman says, speaking directly to camera. "This is to you, Daniel Cameron. To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable."
Another strong signal about the lasting power of abortion rights as an issue was sent by Ohio voters who resoundingly approved enshrining the right to an abortion in the state constitution. In a state that Donald Trump won handily twice, the abortion rights constitutional amendment passed with 57% of the vote. Just as importantly, in this off year with little else on the ballot in Ohio, nearly 3.9 million people voted, only a little less than in 2022 when there was a full ballot, including contests for US Senate, Congress and Governor. The Ohio results follow previous statewide referendum wins for the pro-choice side in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont.
The results of the off-year elections confirm the political dynamics of abortion that have been in place since Roe. v Wade was overturned remains very much in place. As I wrote in a past column, “When abortion was legal and available throughout the land, the political energy on the issue was on the pro-life side. Since Dobbs, that energy has predictably reversed with pro-choice voters more motivated to cast their votes based on candidates’ position on the issue and more likely to become politically active. This political advantage is compounded because a substantial majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most cases.”
As we head into 2024, the two major parties’ contrasting positions on abortion remain a significant Democratic advantage—a vote winning edge that last week’s election results show the Republicans have yet to come up with a way to blunt.