A lot of pundits have some rethinking to do after the abortion rights victory in Kansas on Tuesday. Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, they’ve been telling us it wasn’t going to matter in November. And then Kansas voters turned out in huge numbers for a primary to protect abortion rights. Kansas. In what the Republicans who scheduled the vote chose to be a low-turnout primary election that would favor their side.
A narrow loss for abortion rights would have looked like a win. Instead, there was a resounding win with perhaps 20% of Republican primary voters opposing the effort to end abortion in the state. So it’s going to be interesting to hear from all the people who confidently predicted that pro-choice voters would not be motivated by the Supreme Court’s decision and state after state slammed bans into place.
We won in Kansas, but abortion is still on the ballot in Michigan and Kentucky. Can you chip in $3 to protect abortion rights in those states?
RELATED STORY: Kansas voters send message to Republican Party: 'Worry about November'
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National Review editor Rich Lowry, in Politico, July 14: "Polls Show Americans Don’t Care that Much about Dobbs — and Won’t Base Their Vote on it." Subhed: “Sorry, Samuel Alito isn’t handing Democrats the election.” Choice passage: “Then there’s the fact that most people aren’t passionate about abortion one way or another. The number of people saying it is a top-of-mind concern has increased, although not exponentially and the effect may fade with time.”
In Kansas, more than 168,000 voters turned out just to vote on this one issue, not voting in either primary.
Matt Lewis, in The Daily Beast, June 28: "Will Raging Liberals Cause an Anti-Democrat Backlash?" Subhed: “Dems hope the end of Roe v. Wade will energize their base this November. But you can expect progressive overreach to alienate everyone else—again.”
Lewis’ party was in the process of putting laws in place that would within weeks force a 10-year-old rape victim to cross state lines to get an abortion and produce horrifying stories about women’s health being damaged when doctors were forced to delay miscarriage care until the life of the mother was sufficiently at risk, and he was talking about “progressive overreach.”
Douglas Schoen, in The Orange County Register, July 1: "Will the overturning of Roe really help Democrats in the midterms?" To give you a hint as to Schoen’s answer, the alternate headline as it appears in Nexis: “Midterm Dobbs ruling won’t be enough for Dems.”
A lot of polling coverage also pointed to minimal effects on voting decisions.
To be fair, we don’t know what will happen in the midterm elections. Kansas showed that everyone who said that voters wouldn’t be motivated to turn out to defend abortion rights was dead wrong. It showed that Democrats should hammer this issue and not be fearful. It showed that this election cycle is not a foregone conclusion. It didn’t show what would happen when voters were weighing one candidate against another, taking all issues into account, so it’s not like the Kansas vote guarantees a Democratic landslide in November. But “most people aren’t passionate about abortion one way or another”? “You can expect progressive overreach to alienate everyone else”? Yeah, some people are looking very wrong the morning after Kansas.
Abortion rights, gun safety, and the our planet are all at stake in this election. We must persuade Democratic voters to turn out in November. Click here to volunteer with Vote Forward and write personalized letters to targeted voters on your own schedule from the comfort of your own home, without ever having to talk to anyone.
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