The New York Times discussed how abortion could impact the presidential race in twenty four years
Transgender Electoral Candidates: The Importance of Abortion Bans in the 21st and Future of the Democratic Party
Abortion was dominant; suburban voters outside Ohio’s biggest cities voted overwhelmingly to establish the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution. The incumbent Democratic governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, won not only the state as a whole but also Jefferson County, home to Louisville. He also beat his Republican challenger, Daniel Cameron, in Kenton and Campbell Counties, once reliably Republican redoubts across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.
Two years ago, Glenn Youngkin’s victorious Republican campaign for governor in Virginia had some Democrats worried that their lock on the suburban sprawl outside the nation’s capital wasn’t as tight as they had thought. Those same suburbs on Tuesday made Danica Roem, a Democrat, the first transgender state senator in the South, while helping Democrats seize a majority in the Virginia General Assembly and hold control of the State Senate.
“We let the Democrats drive the message and make it all about abortion,” said John Whitbeck, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia who lives in Loudoun County, a Washington exurb. “The Republican Party has to modernize its message on this issue if we’re going to convince Democrats and independents to cross over and vote Republican. Some districts in Virginia vote blue. In a year where Roe v. Wade is driving intensity, there’s no way for us to win those districts.”
The coronaviruses may have had an effect on Mr. Youngkin’s victory as suburban parents became concerned about school closings and he focused on education.
Some parents recoiled from Republican attempts to ban books with L.G.B.T.Q. themes from libraries and more generally inject socially conservative views into the school system.
The base of the Republican Party believes abortion bans to be a top priority for candidates. The path to victory for a party that only won the presidency once in the past 35 years is much riskier if you ignore these calls. Yet at the same time, the 2022 and 2023 elections have proved that standing firm in support of abortion bans energizes progressive voters and swings independents toward Democratic candidates. Even a small expansion of the president’s coalition could affect his hopes of returning to the White House.
At the state level, the political battles of the post-Dobbs era have mostly been fought. Republicans in Congress, with control of the House of Representatives, have shown little appetite for passing a federal ban, saying the issue is best left to the states to decide. The implausible path for such legislation through a Democratic majority in the Senate, not to mention a certain veto from Mr. Biden, has spared the Republican majority in the House from any substantial pressure to advance such legislation. That said, in the immediate aftermath of seeing his state overwhelmingly support abortion rights this week, the Republican senator J.D. Vance of Ohio is urging a national Republican position on abortion in the form of a 15-week ban.
Abortion rights have had the biggest impact on elections over the past year and a half where voters believe abortion rights to be threatened and when they plausibly see their votes as a means to protect or reinstate abortion rights, it is good news for Democrats and for expanding or protecting abortion access. The biggest change has been seen in the states where abortion is on the ballot, like Nevada and Pennsylvania, where the issue was at the forefront of campaign messaging.
