Midterm elections traditionally go against the party occupying the White House. And months ago, pundits were predicting a "red wave" in the 2022 election. But that was before we saw the reaction of the public to the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision (which overturned Roe vs Wade). The abortion issue is affecting the election, and Republicans would now consider themselves lucky to squeak out a win in one house of Congress.
Here's how Jennifer Rubin describes it in The Washington Post:
Afflicted by a combination of arrogance, insularity and shortsightedness, political analysts for months prematurely declared that Republicans would sail into power on a red wave, that abortion would be a nonissue and that President Biden would drag down his party. Just as they entirely missed the rise of MAGA voters in 2016 (only to then fixate on Rust Belt diners for the next four years), their prognostication appears to have gone haywire again.
Few analysts have captured the political effect of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the right to abortion as well as TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier. “In my 28 years analyzing elections, I’ve never seen anything like what’s happened in the past two months in American politics: Women are registering to vote in numbers I’ve never witnessed,” he wrote for the New York Times. “I’ve run out of superlatives to describe how different this moment is. … This is a moment to throw old political assumptions out the window and to consider that Democrats could buck historic trends this cycle.”
A recent Wall Street Journal poll provides a snapshot: “60% of voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up from 55% in March.” When it comes to which party voters trust on abortion, “48% said Democrats, 27% Republicans, 16% said neither and 6% said both equally. A total of 41% of independents said they trust Democrats most to handle abortion policy, compared with 18% who said Republicans were best.”
Abortion is a — if not the — motivating issue for millions of voters, as the Journal poll respondents proved: “When offered a choice of five issues and asked which made them most likely to vote, they put the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade ahead of inflation.” Moreover, state abortion bans are grossly unpopular (e.g., 62 percent oppose a six-week ban), as are Republicans’ stances on prosecuting doctors (70 percent oppose) and limiting some forms of contraception (78 percent oppose).
It should have come as no surprise that taking away a fundamental right women have held for nearly 50 years is not just another issue, let alone a “wash” that would equally motivate angry abortion rights and delighted antiabortion forces, as many pundits announced. If you deny women’s autonomy as adult decision-makers and subject them to increased risk of trauma, grave health complications and death, they get mad. Verymad.
Dobbs might not be the sole reason Democrats’ standing has improved. (In the Journal poll, generic polling has gone from +5 for Republicans in March to +3 for Democrats, including independents who shifted from +12 Republicans to +3 Democrats.) Biden’s standing has improved, as well (up to 45 percent approval in the poll), after a string of legislative wins. However, to ignore the damage Dobbs wrought to the forced-birth crowd’s political ambitions would be to repeat the analytical failure in advance of Dobbs: One should not underestimate the power of female voters.
Republicans seem to agree how injurious to their midterm hope the Dobbs backlash has become. Witness the frenzy to scrub mention ofabortion from these forced-birth candidates’ websites. Even they understand how thoroughly toxic their abortion views are. Nevertheless, their cynicism knows no bounds. They are betting voters “forget” their dogmatic advocacy to deny women the right to choose. That isn’t happening.
