One year ago this week, the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision, which meant that millions of Americans were no longer guaranteed access to abortion care. It was a political earthquake, and in many ways the ground is still shaking.
For decades, the politics surrounding abortion had been pretty well established, with the Roe v Wade decision making abortion legal nationwide. Republicans wanted Roe to fall, and that motivated their voters. Democrats, on the other hand, simply weren’t as fired up about the issue, and Democratic politicians often shied away from talking about abortion.
But after Roe was overturned, politics changed.
“The threat of women losing a right we’ve waited for and trusted after 50 years of working for it made people angry,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in an interview with NPR. “It brought people together.”
How Dobbs Motivated Michigan Voters in 2022
Abortion was on the ballot in Michigan in 2022, literally, when residents voted in a referendum establishing a state constitutional right to abortion and contraception.
On Election Night 2022, the polls closed at 8 p.m. in Michigan, but anyone already in line could stay and vote.
“The last voter to cast a ballot at the University of Michigan was a little after 2 a.m.,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. “They stood in line for hours. They weren’t going to let the Republicans take away a fundamental right their mothers had.”
Peters led national efforts to get Democrats elected and re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022 and has been asked to do the same in 2024. He says the Dobbs effect was clear and he doesn’t see it going away .
Democrats did better than expected in the midterm elections. In a break with the past, they spoke at length about abortion rights, saying it was a matter of freedom and painting Republicans as extremists. Their voters turned out and independents broke away from Democratic candidates in key races.
Whitmer, who was running for re-election in 2022, won her race by 10 points, a substantial margin over a GOP opponent who said the only exception to the abortion ban should be the life of the mother The state referendum on reproductive rights passed by an even larger margin.
Describing his state as a very purple swing state, Whitmer said Dobbs’ decision “has been something that has really changed the whole landscape here, changing both houses of our legislature for the first time in 40 years and returning me to office and, and a multitude of other people fighting for those rights.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen here in a 2022 file photo, signed some of the nation’s toughest abortion restrictions this year, banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
How Dobbs changes things for Republicans
When Roe was in place, politics was simpler for Republicans. They could just say they wanted it gone and pressure Democrats on whether they would support any limits.
Now the Republican candidates are being pressured for what they want. A total ban? A six-week ban, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed? Should medical abortion be banned? What about exceptions?
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday earlier this year, Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said abortion was a key issue in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2022. These are states that will also be important in the 2024 presidential race.
“The guidance we’re going to give our candidates is that you need to address this head-on,” McDaniel said. “The Democrats spent $360 million on this. And a lot of our candidates generally refused to talk about it thinking, ‘Oh, we can just talk about the economy and ignore this big problem,’ and they can’t.”
Polls show that Dobbs’ decision was unpopular
The challenge is that the American public is not in the same place on abortion access as Republican primary voters. Nationally, Dobbs’ decision remains unpopular. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll This week it found 57% of respondents opposed, led by Democrats, independents and women.
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says public support for abortion spiked right after Dobbs and has been enduring.
As an example, he points to last month’s mayoral race in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Democratic incumbent in the race, whom Lake consulted, made abortion a central issue in his campaign, saying his Republican opponent was extreme because of the statements he had made. previously done on abortion.
“This issue became a core values issue,” said Lake, who also polls for President Biden and the Democratic National Committee. “It’s like, ‘I’m not going to vote for somebody who has those views.’ I don’t care which office you’re talking about. If you’re talking president to dog catcher, I won’t vote. for someone with those values'”.
Will the problem continue to be a big engine?
Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini said he’s not convinced abortion will be the biggest driver of voter enthusiasm in November 2024. He says he’s already seen a reduction in voter intensity on the issue. Abortion rights are consolidating, with Democratic-controlled states moving toward near-universal access to abortion and Republican-controlled states imposing restrictive bans.
“As we settle back into what seems like a status quo … I think it’s going to be harder to move people and get messages out on the issue,” Ruffini said.
Democrats are betting that they can have this issue on their minds. There are looming court decisions that could limit access to medication abortions, and there is still some action in state legislatures. Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., is again talking about introducing a national abortion ban in Congress, set at 15 weeks of pregnancy. While this legislation has no path to passage in the current Senate, the issue will certainly be a topic of debate in the competitive Republican presidential primary.
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