Abortion decision might sink Trump
The American public is largely unaware of and unprepared for an upcoming Supreme Court decision that could significantly reduce abortion access nationwide and create significant repercussions for the 2024 election.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard a case – the most significant since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade – challenging one of two drugs (mifepristone) used in medication abortion. The court, whose decision is likely to come this summer, may opt to restrict use of the drug or even revoke its approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Two-thirds of adults have heard nothing about the mifepristone case, which would affect the method used for more than 60% of abortions in the United States.
A recent national survey found that 66% of adults would oppose banning the use of mifepristone or medication abortion.
If the justices decide to revoke or restrict mifepristone, it will undoubtedly energize Democrats on an issue that has proved effective for them at the ballot box. No state would be exempt – blue states where abortion has remained legal would be as impacted as red states, which already have significant bans and restrictions on abortion.
Voters say election will affect abortion access
The KFF Health Tracking Poll released this month found that half of voters, at least two-thirds of Democrats and 7 in 10 voters who say abortion is their most important voting issue think that the elections for president, Congress and state legislatures will have a major impact on access to abortion.
The Biden campaign has made clear it will prioritize abortion rights, which figured prominently into the president’s State of the Union address and are being highlighted on the campaign trail by Vice President Kamala Harris, who made a first-ever vice presidential visit to an abortion clinic this month.
“Donald Trump handpicked three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would overturn Roe,” Harris said at a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul. “He intended for them to take your freedoms. And he brags about it.”
Republicans want to avoid abortion as election issue
Trump has both embraced his role in overturning Roe and tried to downplay his connection to unpopular abortion bans that have been enacted. The enactment of abortion restrictions has put Republicans on their back foot, and they do not want the 2024 campaign to center on the issue of abortion.
They will work to shift the narrative back to inflation, the border and questions about President Joe Biden’s capabilities.
However, events like the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision ruling that frozen in vitro fertilization embryos have the same rights as children or state legislation that confers personhood rights to a fertilized egg – with consequences for both IVF and contraception – could at any moment spill onto the national stage, forcing candidates to take positions.
Republicans most definitely don’t want to be seen as the party that would threaten access to IVF or contraception. In our own work, we’ve been talking to voters in focus groups recently, and we’ve seen a range of reactions.
In some cases, voters and even health care providers can’t fathom that we’d get to a place where some forms of contraceptives might be banned.
They simply think the backlash would be so strong that politicians would not dare.
In other groups, women see how this could be possible given what has happened in states after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The March KFF national survey found that less than half of adults consider the right to use contraception to be “a secure right likely to remain in place.”
In Ohio, where voters approved in November a constitutional amendment to ensure access to abortion, the Progress Action Fund debuted an ad that placed a Republican politician in a couple’s bedroom. It was risqué but also powerful and may prove to be a template for abortion-rights groups in the dozen or more states that could have abortion initiatives on the ballot in 2024.
In some of these states, the outcome of the presidential contest is largely predetermined by the state’s partisan composition, but in swing states like Arizona or Nevada, the dynamics around abortion access could tilt the election.
Decisions by the Supreme Court or state courts that keep the abortion issue at the forefront could dramatically help Democrats with turnout – particularly with Black women and younger women – and make it more difficult for Republicans to pivot to a more advantageous message.
Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, was one of two lead pollsters for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. She also is a pollster for the Democratic National Committee. Christine Matthews, president of Bellwether Research, is a leading public opinion pollster known for her understanding of swing voters, particularly women.