GOP should refine its stance on abortion issue

Ohio, in 2020, was one of the reddest of red states in the Midwest. Trump defeated Biden by well over a million votes. In 2022, conservative Governor Mike DeWine crushed his Democratic opponent 62-37%, and won all but three of Ohio’s 88 counties. Every tracker in the country, from the Cook Report to Elections Daily, rated Ohio “solid Republican” in 2022. Of the 15 U.S. House seats, they went 10-5 for the GOP. In Ohio’s state House, the GOP gained 3 seats – coming through the race with 67 seats, while the Democrats only managed to hold onto 32. The GOP holds a 26-7 majority in the Senate there.

So, what happened last Tuesday?

Pro-choice Ohioans have been petitioning to place an amendment on the ballot there that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, and many in the Right to Life camp saw the numbers and the probable success of the amendment by a simple majority. Their response was to try to change the rules before that could happen - by trying to amend the constitution which would raise the ante for passage from 50% plus 1, to a super-majority of 60%. Republican politicos jumped on board with both feet and forced a public vote – in mid-summer, with nothing else on the ballot – and lost. Cataclysmically.

The pattern of last week’s vote in Ohio is similar to the vote that took place in Kansas on a similar issue, where the state’s Republican majority tried to amend the privacy clause of the state constitution to allow a restrictive abortion law. This pattern lays out, in mathematical terms, the case that abortion rights are issues that lie orthogonal to the usual left-right continuum associated with “liberal” and “conservative.”

While large cities went heavily for “no,” more conservative, largely rural areas went “yes,” but very faintly, with the “yes” vote only winning by a few percentage points. This is a clear definition of “groundswell” and throws up a red flag that Republicans ignore at their peril.

The abortion issue has played a major role in Republican victories for decades. It was part of every GOP platform for the past 20 years and folks ran on abortion restriction as a matter of course – successfully. This went well until suddenly Roe v. Wade no longer protected these rights. Dogs chase cars, true – but what to do when they catch one? For many Republicans, reconsideration of the hard facts of the matter meant a massive change in preference. And it’s not just Ohio and Kansas - Kentucky and Montana (hardly states known for their policy liberalism) also rejected plebiscites that would have led to greater restriction on reproductive rights.

Florida could be next. The passing of a strict antiabortion bill over the last session, signed into law by Governor DeSantis, is now up for grabs. A constitutional amendment is being offered for ballot consideration that would solidly lock in the right to abortion access and is on the verge of qualifying by petition.

Despite years of GOP rule, Florida remains an incredibly volatile voting polity. But even if the Republican majority remains constant, the example of Ohio shows that this may not matter in this policy arena. Republicans could easily support such an amendment, despite what the platform may have said.

A recent poll in Arizona, where another referendum is making its way to the ballot, indicates that these measures may boost turnout and support among Democrats, but do not raise Republican turnout at all. If this is the case, the implications for the 2024 election are obvious.

It is high time – for the political success of the GOP – that the party heavily moderate its stand on this issue, or risk losing far more than an initiative on abortion rights.

Bruce Anderson is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government, and Civics and Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Florida Southern College. He is also a columnist for The Ledger.