How abortion rights are affecting US legislative elections

Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic congresswoman representing an undecided congressional district in the heart of Michigan, recalls the moment when abortion rights exploded as a burning issue in the so-called midterms, midterm elections in the US.

It was in early May. News had just leaked of the Supreme Court’s intention to overturn the legal precedent Roe v. Wade, in effect for half a century, rescinding the country’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

Slotkin was on a flight from Detroit to Washington and overheard two Republicans talking and lamenting the decision, which would be confirmed the following month.

“They both said, ‘I would never have an abortion, but I’ve never been in another woman’s shoes and I wouldn’t tell her what to do,'” says Slotkin, interviewed in September at Mount Calvary Baptist Church. “After that, there were countless women calling me at events and saying things like, ‘Look, this is too much.’

Slotkin, 46, is far from a progressive social warrior. A former CIA analyst and Pentagon official, she focuses her attention as a lawmaker primarily on her experience with national security and veteran military affairs, as well as issues such as the economy and manufacturing jobs.

Aside from his meetings with women willing to share their stories and the fear they have of reducing access to reproductive health, Slotkin says the abortion issue has begun to affect the election race in other concrete ways.

When volunteers campaigned door-to-door, she says, the topic dominated conversations. And in her district, Michigan State University students signed up to vote for the first time in a wave. In the final stretch of the campaign, his Republican rival, Tom Barrett, suddenly found himself on the defensive because he was in favor of strict limitations on abortion.

“It’s become a topic you can’t avoid, even if you don’t want to talk about it,” says Slotkin. “They [republicanos] are cornered, because this subject insists on reappearing. Does not go away.”

With the days of Americans going to the polls, the outcome of the midterms is far less predictable.

Republicans, who were on course to regain control of the House without difficulty due to dissatisfaction with inflation and disenchantment with President Joe Biden, are now fighting a much harder fight. Pollsters say the Republicans are still likely to win, but with a slim majority.

In the Senate, however, Democrats have new hope of retaining their majority after Republican primary voters chose a range of candidates loyal to former President Donald Trump in key races from Pennsylvania to Ohio, from Georgia to Arizona.

The generic poll average calculated by the Financial Times in May gave Republicans a 3.4-point lead, now gives Democrats a 1.4-point lead.

Biden and his party are looking at the midterms with more confidence in their chance to avoid the massive first-term defeats of two of his predecessors: Bill Clinton in 1994 and Barack Obama in 2010.

The situation could easily reverse itself if gas prices rise again or if voters start paying more attention to other issues at stake where Republicans have the upper hand, such as immigration on the southern border.

But the annulment of Roe v. Wade has handed the Democrats the equivalent of political gold: she must motivate the party’s base and supporters to register to vote and turn out in force. A CBS poll found that 71% of female voters said a candidate must agree with them on abortion to receive their vote. Among Democrats, the right to abortion is the most important issue in the election.

“The Supreme Court decision made it very clear what the consequences of abstaining from voting will be for Democrats,” says political scientist Lara Brown of the New Center think tank. “Fundamentally, Democrats, and women in particular, are mobilized around the idea that for 50 years they’ve had that choice and now it’s determined by the laws of each state; and many live in states where they no longer have that choice. .”

The Great Lakes State Debate

Michigan has emerged as the place where the political debate around reproductive rights will be put to the test this year, because abortion occupies a separate place in the vote. If voters approve the so-called Proposition 3, which has the support of Democrats, the right to abortion will be enshrined in the state Constitution.

It would overturn a 1931 state law that criminalizes abortion in most cases, including rape and incest, except to preserve the mother’s life. While the constitutional protection given by Roe was in effect, the restrictions in Michigan were never implemented. But the new decision paved the way for its possible implementation and for the initiation of legal proceedings.

The vote on a specific measure is expected to energize voter participation and affect races at all levels, including races for seats in Congress, the government and the state legislature. A similar proposal in July in Kansas, a deeply conservative state, resulted in a resounding victory for abortion rights advocates.

Democratic State Representative Sarah Anthony, a candidate for a state Senate seat, said she notes interest in protecting abortion rights among many sectors of the electorate, from deeply conservative rural towns to black churches, where the subject was once taboo. “Voters want to know not only how each candidate stands on this issue, but also what he will do to ensure that the proposal passes the polls,” she says.

Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor, has made the protection of abortion rights one of the key points of her re-election campaign, in which she faces Republican Tudor Dixon. A conservative media personality, Dixon is avowedly anti-abortion. Polls suggest Whitmer is the favorite.

In Slotkin’s race, the House Majority Political Action Committee, a group that promotes Democratic candidates, has already released a digital ad attacking Tom Barrett for supporting the 1931 law. trying to distance themselves from the more radical postures. His team declined to comment for this report.

But Slotkin says voters are unlikely to believe his opponent’s change of heart. She highlights the irony that Republicans have historically mobilized voters around social issues and now find themselves in the opposite position. “They have no idea what to do.”

Earlier this month, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina made life even more difficult for his party’s candidates when he proposed a sweeping national ban on abortion after 15 weeks’ gestation and the imposition of criminal penalties on doctors who perform the procedure. procedure. The proposal was all but dismissed by minority leader Mitch McConnell, but it appears to have confirmed Democrats’ fears that the GOP wants to go beyond even the Supreme Court’s decision.

How will it be?

It remains to be seen whether the backlash against the Supreme Court ruling will translate into enough votes for Democrats to significantly change the outcome of tough midterms. John Truscott, a Republican political adviser in Michigan, says the GOP has been “caught in short pants” but that the impact may not be as strong as Democrats now hope.

“Economic issues will be taken into account again in the final stretch of the campaign”, he says.

For Democratic officials and politicians, the fundamental reality is that much of the mobilization is fear-based — often on a very personal level. “We knew this was going to happen, but when it did it was like a bucket of cold water,” says Judy Daubenmier, chairman of the Livingston County Democratic Party. “It wasn’t someone trying to scare us anymore. It was real. And that scared people.”

Brown of the New Center think tank thinks that both Republican and Democrat voters are now expected to turn out in large numbers, making the outcome especially uncertain. “Some will vote because of inflation, crime and immigration; others because of abortion and the threat to democracy.”

In an EPIC-MRA poll of likely voters in Michigan, 24% cited abortion laws as the top issue at hand, tied with controlling inflation. “Essentially, we’re seeing two waves, each mobilized by different issues and both operating to some extent within their respective party and information bubbles,” says Brown. “The big question is what will happen when these two waves collide.”