Abortion is mobilizing women around the country, and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is capitalizing on that in his Senate campaign. It’s the top issue Fetterman is talking about in his campaign stump speech, and he’s focused some rallies specifically around the issue.
“Dr. Oz might be a joke. He might be a joke, but it’s not funny. Because [abortion] is on the ballot here in Pennsylvania right now,” Fetterman said at a Philadelphia rally. “I fought for Philadelphia, and I am going to fight for abortion rights here in Pennsylvania and in America.”
In response, women are turning out, CNN reports.
RELATED STORY: Lindsey Graham: If Republicans win Congress, 'I assure you' there will be a vote to ban abortion
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Some are old enough to remember the fight for abortion rights in the early 1970s. “We did not fight for our granddaughters to not have the same rights that we did,” 71-year-old Kate Campbell told the network. “Abortion is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of denying women and pother people their rights. … If they are able to take that right, what is the next right?”
And some had only lived in a United States in which abortion rights were the law—until the Supreme Court changed that in June.
This is “definitely the first time I had ever purchased a T-shirt and I did sign up to volunteer for the campaign,” 37-year-old Kim Maynard said. “Honestly, prior to 2020, I didn’t vote in anything but the presidential elections.”
That right there, the people who haven’t been regular midterm voters? That’s huge.
According to a CBS News/YouGov poll, 70% of Fetterman voters say abortion is very important to them, while just 30% of people supporting Republican nominee Mehmet Oz say the same. Fifty-five percent of Democrats say the end of Roe makes them more likely to vote compared with 15% of Republicans.
Meanwhile Republicans are attacking Fetterman's tattoos, and it’s not going well for them. Relatedly, voters see Fetterman as more authentic than Oz: 57% think he says what he believes compared with just 29% thinking Oz says what he believes rather than what he thinks voters want to hear. Fetterman’s tattoos are not the mark of someone who’s spent his life worrying about voters’ mental image of a United States senator, while Oz can’t even shop for vegetables without seeming inauthentic.
And abortion is a case in point there. Before he was a Republican candidate, Oz was not especially opposed to abortion. Then in May, he called abortion “murder.” Then this month he said he opposed criminal penalties for abortion. The man definitely doesn’t think what he believes is as important as what the voters he’s trying to appeal to at any given moment might want him to say.
Pennsylvania women—and anyone else worried about abortion rights or the next right the Supreme Court is coming for—can’t just buy T-shirts and turn out for rallies, though. They need to turn out to vote. They need to talk to their friends and neighbors and families about turning out to vote. Because abortion really is on the ballot, in Pennsylvania and everywhere else.
Abortion rights, climate change, and gun safety are all on the ballot this fall, and there are literally thousands of ways to get involved in turning our voters. Plug into a federal, state, or local campaign from our GOTV feed at Mobilize and help Democrats and progressives win in November.
RELATED STORY: Polling shows abortion rights to be a definitive issue among rural battleground voters
Since Dobbs, women have registered to vote in unprecedented numbers across the country, and the first person to dig into these stunning trends was TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier, who's our guest on this week's episode of The Downballot. Bonier explains how his firm gathers data on the electorate; why this surge is likely a leading indicator showing stepped-up enthusiasm among many groups of voters, including women, young people, and people of color; how we know these new registrants disproportionately lean toward Democrats; and what it all might mean for November.