Democrats eye state races for securing abortion rights
WASHINGTON – A Democratic group has outlined its strategy for securing abortion access by targeting statehouse races.
State legislatures have become “the arbiters of reproductive freedom, shaping the reality facing women and their access to care,” the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee wrote in a memo first shared with USA TODAY.
Solutions at the state level “will end Republicans’ anti-abortion crusade and protect fundamental reproductive freedoms,” the group wrote, saying this year’s statehouse elections will “decide the future of abortion rights.”
The committee in January announced a $60 million budget to hold and flip state legislative seats.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, 25 states with Republican-led legislatures enacted laws to outlaw or restrict abortion, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Some states have gone a step further, trying to clamp down on contraceptive access. Arizona Republicans blocked an effort from Democratic lawmakers to protect the right to contraceptives in the state last week.
The DLCC expressed concern in its memo over the Alabama Supreme Court’s blockbuster ruling granting legal protections to frozen embryos created during in vitro fertilization.
The U.S. has 99 state legislative chambers, with elections in 85 this year, according to the campaign committee. Currently, 57 are GOP-led.
The DLCC laid out a battle plan in its memo. It is seeking to protect and expand new Democratic majorities in Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania and to flip seats in Republican-led Arizona and New Hampshire chambers. In states with red legislatures such as Georgia, the group is seeking to build Democratic power to get the ball rolling for future majority control.
The committee will likely face challenges in flipping seats and building Democratic majorities in these races, experts say.
For one, state legislatures have become polarized due to a wide range of factors, said Mary Ziegler, a politics of reproduction expert at UC Davis School of Law. Because of gerrymandering, some state legislatures have essentially been under the control of a single party, even when the electorate might not be monolithic.
Also, state races are lower-profile, said Amanda Roberti, a political science professor at San Francisco State University. “The DLCC will have to spend a lot of time and resources making sure voters understand who the candidates are, and why those candidates are better for the people,” she said.
Another issue: Incumbent candidates generally have an overwhelming chance of winning reelection, Roberti said.
But Heather Williams, president of the DLCC, argued that Republicans have vulnerabilities in states the organization is targeting. In Arizona, for instance, there is an effort underway to get an initiative on the ballot that would protect the right to abortion until about 24 weeks. Democrats have notched multiple victories with statelevel ballot measures on abortion rights, even in states that often go red.