Protecting what’s left of abortion rights—and possibly even expanding them—depends a lot on what happens downballot in this election, particularly in state legislative races but also in races for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and state Supreme Courts.
An electorate that is increasingly focused on abortion is good. But those voters have to be convinced that voting for a single initiative, be it in Kansas or Kentucky or Michigan, and for the top of the ticket federal races aren’t going to be enough to protect and restore abortion rights, voting rights, or basic democracy in the states.
A key example is in North Carolina, one of the last refuges for southerners seeking abortion. Just a few state legislative races could decide the future, but Democrats are running behind in the spending race. Jessica Post, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, told Politico that the disparity in funding right now is downright alarming, with the Republican counterpart to the DLCC outraising it by nearly $4 million last quarter.
“If we continue to neglect this level of the ballot, there will be devastating consequences,” Post said. “If you want to protect abortion rights, the single best place to devote your time, energy and resources is on state legislative races.”
If you want to help make America the place it ought to be, it starts by electing more and better Democrats—up and down the ballot. And you can do your part right here.
Campaign Action
State legislatures are where more national grassroots and institutional Democrat money needs to be going, and fast. That includes North Carolina, where Republicans need just two state Senate seats and three state House seats to have a veto-proof majority against Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The Republicans are already talking potential abortion restrictions in the event they gain a supermajority. Republicans in Wisconsin and Virginia are also on the cusp of having majorities that could ban abortion. “Our challenge will be to convince—or not to convince because it’s true—will be to tell people that any one of these individual legislature races is just like a constitutional amendment in Kansas,” Cooper said.
Democrats can take heart that it’s a message at least some voters and would-be voters are getting. Tom Bonier, chief executive at TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, says that in North Carolina, Democrats have a 5-point edge in new voter registrations since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning abortion rights. Before that, Republicans were leading by 1 point in new registrations. In other battleground states—including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin—Bonier says there’s a surge where “we’re seeing more women register and we’re seeing more Democrats register.”
That’s fantastic, but there needs to be a concerted campaign by Democrats to talk to all those new registrants about the need to vote the entire Democratic ticket. And big, national Democratic donors have to engage in that. “We are seeing more [spending and fundraising] on a legislative level, but there’s still a long way to go. Donors need to understand how critical these races are, especially around voting rights and abortion,” said Morgan Jackson, a North Carolina Democratic strategist who works with Cooper. “National Democratic donors are late to the party on state races because Republicans have been here for over a decade.”
It’s a message new voters highly motivated by abortion access should be receptive to, if Laila Shaikh, a brand-new Gen_Z voter in Ohio, is representative. She’s voting for the first time this election. “That’s something that’s extremely personal, and it definitely did push me to go to the polls as a young woman, because you never know what type of situation you’re going to be in,” Shaikh said.
“Especially pushing me on being like, ‘Hey, I should even register for the smaller elections, you know, not just the one that’s coming up in November,’” she added.
Precisely. And for the entire ballot.
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.