One year after Dobbs, Democratic momentum on abortion continues

It’s been one year since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the widely unpopular Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling, which ended the constitutional right to abortion, upending 50 years of precedent. Over the last 12 months, the American public’s already strong support for abortion rights has become even more entrenched, and the draconian bans imposed in Republican-controlled states have triggered a seismic shift in the political landscape — one that is advantageous to Democrats — surrounding the issue. 

With Republicans poised to continue their anti-choice crusade in the run-up to the 2024 election, abortion is likely to remain a motivating force for voters across the country, and thus a major strength for the Democratic Party, particularly in swing states where reproductive rights hang in the balance. 

This certainly was the case in 2022, which was the most successful midterm election year for a president’s party in over two decades, as well as the first time since 1934 that a president’s party gained governorships during his first term. Messaging on abortion rights specifically — and GOP extremism generally — propelled Democratic candidates to win statewide victories over far-right opponents in purple states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. One of the biggest success stories for the pro-choice movement was in Michigan, where Democrats won major statewide races, flipped control of the legislature and passed a ballot measure codifying abortion rights. 

The momentum behind this issue hasn’t slowed in 2023. The 11-point victory of Judge Janet Protasiewicz in her race for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court earlier this year marked a stunning rebuke of the Republican Party’s extreme anti-choice positions. In their advertising, Democratic groups aggressively targeted Protasiewicz’s conservative opponent, former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Dan Kelly, who reportedly offered legal advice to a Wisconsin anti-abortion group prior to his appointment to the court in 2016. Protasiewicz argued that, if elected, Kelly would likely support keeping an extreme abortion ban dating back to the 1840s, which had been nullified by Roe v. Wade, on the books. 

Opinion polling offers additional insight into the enduring political potency of abortion, as well as the electoral peril Republicans could continue to face as a result. According to Gallup, support for abortion rights is at its highest level in nearly three decades, and record numbers of voters will only consider voting for candidates who share their views on the issue. This bodes poorly for the GOP, as polls routinely find upwards of 70 percent of Americans saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Further, a majority of the all-important voter group, independents, favor Congress codifying federal abortion rights (53 percent), as do an even stronger majority of independent women (63 percent), per USA Today polling. 

There is little question that the abortion bans imposed in Republican-led states, while varying in degree, have put the GOP out of step with most of the country — yet more in lockstep with their party’s base. This dynamic is illustrative of the broader challenge the Republican Party faces with needing to appease its increasingly far-right constituents, while still remaining nationally viable.  

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who identifies as pro-life, is one of the few prominent Republicans who has admitted that the GOP’s anti-choice positions are too extreme and has pleaded with her party to have more “compassion” and “common sense” on abortion. Though, the way the two GOP presidential frontrunners – former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — are handling the issue suggests that they too recognize the political catch-22 facing their party. 

Trump recently claimed on his rightwing social media platform that he was able to “kill Roe v. Wade” by appointing three conservative justices to the high court yet has evaded questions over whether he would support a national abortion ban. Likewise, DeSantis touted Florida’s six-week abortion ban to evangelical and ultra-conservative voters in Iowa, yet avoided discussing the issue in New Hampshire, where the Republican electorate is more moderate.  

While the Republican Party has not yet articulated a uniform position on the circumstances under which abortion should be restricted, many are quietly coalescing around a national 15-week ban. House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) signaled last month that her caucus would begin the process of introducing legislation to this effect, which is similar to what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed eight weeks before last year’s midterm elections.  

Even though a 15-week limit represents an ostensible middle-ground between a so-called “heartbeat bill” and the parameters allowed under Roe, any discussion of a federal ban hurts Republicans immensely. 

For starters, it undercuts the “states’ rights” argument that traditional conservatives have advanced for years, in addition to nationalizing the issue, which inherently plays to Democrats’ advantage, given where public opinion lies. Even though Democratic abortion rights messaging has proven to be less compelling in states where access is not at risk, such as New York, this will certainly change if House Republicans move ahead with a national ban of any kind, as could the 2024 Senate map, which currently favors Republicans. 

A national ban would also be a gift to President Biden, who is poised to run the most overtly pro-abortion general election campaign in modern history, with an eye toward swing states like North Carolina — which he lost in 2020, though could now make inroads in, given the statewide backlash to a similar ban passed by the GOP legislature. 

To be sure, a number of other issues that are less favorable to Democrats — the economy, crime and immigration — will also be at play in 2024. But if the party is able to keep abortion rights as a focal point of the campaign — in a way that ties the issue back to GOP extremism generally — Biden has a good chance of returning to the White House with a Democratic Congress in tow.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to former President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. He is the author of “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.” Zoe Young is vice president of Schoen Cooperman Research.