Why abortion will be a major factor in the 2024 election

In today’s fast-paced news environment, single events rarely impact multiple election cycles.

For example, support for gun reform goes up after mass shooting events, but fades as the news turns to other issues.

But one year after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision and paved the way for states to ban the procedure, abortion rights remain a major factor in elections across the country. And that’s not a good thing for Republicans, whose moves to ban the procedure are unpopular with voters. 

“I expect abortion and abortion access to be a top issue in 2024,” Nathan Gonzalez, a nonpartisan political handicapper with Inside Elections, said in an interview with the American Independent Foundation. “I think the economy and related issues will be the dominant issue, but abortion will still be relevant because there’s consistently news being made that state legislatures continue to enact laws, or judges are making decisions on specific drugs, that keep the issue at the top of some voters’ minds.”

Indeed, Republican-controlled state legislatures and conservative justices continue to ban abortion or allow abortion bans to go into effect. The procedure also remains at risk nationally, with a federal appeals court weighing whether to ban the drug mifepristone, which is prescribed to self-manage abortions in early pregnancy. 

A USA Today/Suffolk University poll published Tuesday found more than 75% of voters said abortion rights will be an important issue for them in the 2024 elections, with 20% saying it’s the most important issue. That same poll found voters have become more supportive of abortion rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe and GOP-controlled legislatures began banning the procedure. 

“As bad as the abortion issue was for Republicans in 2022, this poll (and others) suggest it may be even worse for them in 2024,” Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who was one of the few strategists to correctly predict the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections, tweeted. “Public opinion has become significantly more pro-abortion since last summer.”  

Democrats say they will continue to hammer Republicans on the issue in 2024, when the party will defend the White House and the Senate and look to win back control of the House. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to the House, on Thursday published a memo detailing why they believe the issue will help the party retake the majority in 2024, including that the threat to abortion rights will help them in House districts in New York and California. 

“With the one year anniversary of the disastrous Dobbs ruling approaching on June 24, the DCCC will continue to highlight the contrast between Democrats who fight to protect reproductive freedoms while Republicans work to strip them away,” the DCCC wrote.

Privately, some Republicans admit that the issue of abortion will be a problem for the party.

Gonzales obtained a slide deck of a polling memo that a group of GOP Senate staffers left behind after a meeting at a resort in West Virginia in May. The memo said that voters faced with a generic ballot have shifted to wanting Democrats and not Republicans to control the Senate. 

“This movement is [led] overwhelmingly by Independent and NEW voters that identify abortion as one of their top issues,” the memo said. “Reproductive Freedom is the #1 issue among those that DID NOT vote in 2020.”

Abortion played a major role in the 2022 midterms, helping Democrats defy past midterm trends for a party that holds the White House and keep control of the Senate and minimize losses in the House. 

“Abortion access was one issue that prompted independent voters to support more Democrats than Republicans in the midterm elections, even though independent voters weren’t so enamored with President Biden,” Gonzales said. “The Republicans going so far on restricting access to abortion gave some independents pause.”

Abortion has continued to be an issue in off-year elections. It helped liberals gain control of the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin in April and was a key factor in the ouster of an anti-abortion Democratic state senator in a primary election in Virginia on Tuesday. And in other elections across the country, Democrats are over-performing previous results in part thanks to backlash against Republicans over abortion restrictions.

“If there’s one thing that’s become clearer every single day since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, it’s this: Americans support abortion,” Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a press call on Thursday. “No matter who you are or where you live, being free to make your own decisions about your own life is a fundamental right, and as voters have shown us in every single election since Dobbs, they will come out to defend that right.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.