A series of post-election focus groups of ticket-splitters conducted by the progressive group Navigator Research found that while economic issues were definitely top of mind for them, abortion was very much on their radar too. Even if abortion wasn’t a voter’s main issue, the national discourse over reproductive freedom appears to have reinforced the sense of this election offering a distinct choice between the parties.
Ticket splitters proved to be an important group in November because they played a significant role in key battleground elections and elsewhere. A recent New York Times Upshot analysis of post-election data suggested that Republican ticket-splitters and perhaps some independent voters helped defeat some of the GOP’s Trumpiest Senate candidates in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada.
The ticket-splitting pattern was also apparent in Kansas, where incumbent Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly won reelection with 52% of the vote while incumbent Republican Sen. Jerry Moran secured another term with a convincing 60% of the vote. Similarly in New Hampshire, incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan won a second term with 53.6% of the vote, while incumbent GOP Gov. Chris Sununu secured his fourth term with 57.1% of the vote.
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Ticket splitters in the focus groups definitely voiced concerns about inflationary pressures and the price of goods.
“I would just say my biggest thing is the cost of food, because we all have to eat,” said one such voter in Arizona, who hoped for some bipartisan collaboration on the issue in Washington. “If food keeps rising, no matter what, I have to pay for it, and that’s important to me. I need somebody in there that’s going to try to keep the price of food lower.”
Another in Florida expressed general pessimism about the state of the economy. “I just feel like everything's going downhill: the economy, the gas prices, jobs, nobody wants to work,” said the Gator ticket splitter. “Everything [is] costing so much more. Housing market is still high.”
But asked to summarize what the election was chiefly about, many voters who cast votes on both sides if the aisle viewed abortion as a driving force.
One Iowa ticket splitter cited personal experience in regard to the importance of reproductive rights.
“Speaking from personal experience, I'm going to be completely honest—yes, I've had an abortion before. I was 17 years old, I'm 58 now,” she said. “I love children, don't get me wrong, and I have one of my own that's 24, but at that time I was not ready to become a mom. I was glad that I had that freedom to make that choice. Whether I could say that I would do it again, no. But I'm pro-choice, all the same, but, me personally, it's like, gosh, I would not want that right taken away. I think every woman should have that choice.”
Another Iowa ticket splitter couldn't name any other issue driving the election except abortion.
"I don't know," they offered, adding, "There's the big debate about abortion, naturally, is a big thing. Other than that, I'm sorry.”
One ticket splitter in Colorado reflected back on what drove discussions within both parties.
“I know there's a lot of talk about the red wave and trying to get Republicans back in seats and everything and in control,” they said. “And I know on the Dems’ side, I know it was a lot about women's rights and getting back versus Roe v. Wade and taking back some of that action.”
The Navigator report shows that abortion permeated the national conversation, even though voters varied on how much reproductive rights informed their votes. In some ways, the issue may have helped reinforce an extremely simple narrative: Republicans want to take things away while Democrats want to protect the gains Americans have made and indeed further them. That seems to be the general gist of why this Georgia voter cast a ballot for Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock even though they appreciated GOP Gov. Brian Kemp’s handling of economy.
“I voted for Kemp for governor because we've had great job growth and great economy under his leadership the last four years,” they said. “And I voted for Raphael Warnock because he championed some causes that are near and dear to me for my family, like the cap on the insulin costs and Medicare out of pocket costs.”
The simple fact that reproductive freedom finally moved beyond the well-worn life-versus-choice discussion that has dominated the topic since the ‘80s leaves Democrats with a chasmic opening going forward. Republicans have devoted decades to building their coalition around a highly dogmatic puritanical view of abortion. The more Democrats engage Americans in a nuanced discussion about abortion—and privacy rights more broadly—the better.
Republicans have no answer for that. None. It could easily take them a solid decade to figure out how to navigate the issue while rebuilding a functional coalition of voters in the process.