A decisive vote to defend abortion rights in deeply conservative Kansas reverberated across the midterm campaign landscape Wednesday, galvanizing Democrats and underscoring for Republicans the risks of overreach on one of the most emotional charge of American politics.
The landslide defeat of a measure that would have removed abortion protections from the state constitution quickly encouraged Democrats to run harder on abortion rights and even to take back some of the language used long by conservatives against government overreach, using it to ban abortion as an infringer. on personal freedoms. (As of Wednesday, the margin was 58.8% to 41.2%).
“The court practically dared the women of this country to go to the polls to restore the right to choose,” President Biden said. said by video Wednesday, when he signed an executive order aimed at helping Americans cross state lines for abortions. “They have no idea about the power of American women.”
In interviews, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, urged Democrats to be “full-fledged” in their support for abortion access, and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chairman of the Democratic campaign arm of the House, said the Kansas vote offered a “preview.” of the upcoming attractions” for the Republicans. Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat in a highly competitive district, issued a statement saying abortion access “goes to the core of preserving personal liberty and ensuring that women, not the government , they can decide their own destiny”.
Republicans said the midterm campaigns would be defined by Mr. Biden’s disastrous approval ratings and economic concerns.
Credit…Christopher (KS) Smith for The New York Times
Both Republicans and Democrats caution against conflating the results of an up-or-down ballot question with how Americans will vote in November, when they weigh a long list of issues, personalities and their views on Democratic control of Washington .
“Add candidates and a much more robust conversation on many other issues, this single issue is not going to drive the full national narrative that Democrats expect,” said David Kochel, a veteran of Republican politics in nearby Iowa. Even so, Mr. Kochel acknowledged the risks of Republican overreach, as social conservatives push abortion bans with few exceptions that polls generally show are unpopular.
“The GOP base is definitely ahead of where the voters are in wanting to restrict abortion,” he said. “That’s the main lesson of Kansas.”
Polls have long shown support from a majority of Americans at least some abortion rights. But abortion opponents have been far more likely to let the issue determine their vote, creating a passion gap between the two sides of the issue. Democrats hoped this summer’s Supreme Court decision to strike down the constitutional right to abortion would change that, as Republican-led states rushed to enact new restrictions and enforce bans on the procedure.
The Kansas vote was the most concrete evidence yet that a broad swath of voters, including some Republicans still supporting their party in November, were willing to push back. Kansans voted against the amendment in Johnson County, home to moderate, populous suburbs outside Kansas City, rejecting the measure with about 70 percent of the vote, a sign of the issue’s power in the countryside of suburban battles across the country. But the amendment was also defeated in the most conservative counties, as support for abortion rights surpassed Mr. Biden’s showing in 2020 almost everywhere.
After months of struggling with their own disengaged, if not demoralized, base, Democratic strategists and officials hoped the results would signal some sort of awakening. They argued that abortion rights are a powerful part of the effort to cast Republicans as extremists and make the 2022 election a bipartisan election, rather than a referendum on Democrats alone.
“Republicans running for office are very outspoken about their support for abortion bans,” said Senator Warren. “It’s critical that Democrats make it equally clear that this is a key difference, and Democrats will advocate for the pregnant person to make the decision, not the government.”
A Kansas-style referendum will be a rarity this election year, with only four other states expected to put abortion rights directly to voters in November with measures to amend their constitutions: California, Michigan, Vermont and Kentucky. However, the issue has already emerged as a defining debate in some key races, including in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Democratic gubernatorial candidates have positioned themselves as bulwarks against far-reaching restrictions or bans on abortion. On Tuesday, Michigan Republicans nominated Governor Tudor Dixon, a former conservative commentator who has opposed abortion in cases of rape and incest.
Credit…Katie Currid for The New York Times
And in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican candidate for governor, said: “I don’t give way to exceptions” when asked if he believes in exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Gubernatorial contests in states like Wisconsin and Georgia could also directly affect abortion rights.
Other evidence of the impact of abortion on races will come sooner. In upstate New York City, a Democrat running in a special House election this month, Pat Ryan, has made abortion rights a centerpiece of his campaign, casting the race as a another measure of the power of the issue this year.
“We must step up and make sure our fundamental freedoms are protected and defended,” said Mr. Ryan, the Ulster County executive in New York, who had been watching the Kansas results closely.
Opponents of the Kansas referendum leaned into this message of “freedom,” with advertising which presented the effort as a government mandate, anathema to voters wary of too much intervention in Topeka and Washington, and sometimes without using the word “abortion.”
Some of the messages were aimed at moderate, often suburban, voters who have switched between the parties in recent elections. Strategists from both parties agreed that abortion rights could be relevant to voters, especially women, in the fall. Democrats also pointed to evidence that the issue can also increase turnout among their base voters.
After the Supreme Court decision, Democrats registered to vote at a faster rate than Republicans in Kansas, according to a note from Tom Bonier, the CEO of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm. Mr. Bonier said his analysis found that about 70 percent of Kansans who registered after the court’s decision were women.
“It’s bad practice not to continue to focus on this issue for the rest of this election season, and beyond,” said Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist. “What Democrats should be saying is that for Americans, your bedroom is on the ballot this November.”
Within the Democratic Party, there has been a fierce debate since Roe was overturned about how much to talk about abortion rights at a time of rising prices and a rocky economy, and it’s likely to intensify. There’s always the risk, some longtime strategists warn, of being distracted from the issues that polls show are still driving most Americans.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said he understood the hesitation of party supporters.
“The energy is on the side of abortion rights,” he said. “For decades that hasn’t been true, so it’s hard for some people who’ve been through a lot of hard battles and a lot of hard states to recognize that the ground has shifted beneath them. But it has.”
He urged Democrats to ignore polls showing abortion was not a top issue, adding that “voters take their cues from leaders” and Democrats need to talk more about abortion access . “When your pollster or your strategist says, ‘Take an abortion question and walk away from it,’ you should probably resist,” he said.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released this week showed that the issue of abortion access had become more relevant to women ages 18 to 49, jumping 14 percentage points from February to to those who say it will be very important for their vote in mid-term elections, up to 73 percent.
That’s about the same as the share of voters overall who said inflation would be very important this fall, and a sign of how popular abortion has become for many women.
Still, Republicans said they wouldn’t let their focus deviate from the issues they’ve been discussing for months.
“This fall, voters will consider abortion along with inflation, education, crime, national security and the feeling that no one in Democratic-controlled Washington listens to them or cares about them,” said Kellyanne Conway, the l ‘republican pollster and ex-President Trump White. House advisor
Michael McAdams, the Republican National Congressional Committee’s communications director, said if Democrats focused the fall campaign on abortion, they would ignore the economy and record prices — “the No. 1 issue in every competitive district.” .
one of the more endangered House Democrats, Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, agreed that “the economy is the issue that defines people.”
“But there is a relationship here, because voters want leaders to focus on fighting inflation, not banning abortion,” he said. Malinowski, who said he planned to announce abortion rights, said the results in Kansas had affirmed for him the importance of abortion and the public’s desire to keep government out of personal decisions.
“There’s tremendous energy among voters and potential voters this fall to do that,” he said.
Peter Baker contributed reporting from Washington.
