One in 5 voters ranked issues such as abortion as their top concern last November in the state’s competitive 7th District, where Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin fended off Republican rival Tom Barrett with a better margin of victory there than President Joe Biden received in 2020. A similar story was true in the state’s 3rd District, an open-seat contest where Democrat Hillary Scholten beat Republican John Gibbs, who was hammered for past comments that he was “100% pro-life in all cases.”
But if the Slotkin and Scholten victories showed how an elevated focus on abortion can help Democratic candidates, Michigan also highlighted the limits of the approach. In the state’s open 10th District race, where 18% ranked abortion, birth control and equal pay as their top voting concern, Republican John James narrowly eked out a victory in one of the state's tightest battlegrounds.
Rachel Sweet, an organizer who helped lead successful abortion rights ballot campaigns last year in Kansas and Kentucky, said ballot measures — though universally successful for supporters of abortion rights last year — were not a panacea or “magical turnout vehicles” for candidates who support abortion rights.
“What we saw in 2022 was those types of measures being on the ballot don't universally help candidates,” she said, noting Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s easy victory where she was working in Kentucky. “But in some states like Michigan, you can make an argument that being on the ballot probably helped Gretchen Whitmer and other candidates win.”
Where abortion policy is on the move ahead of 2024
In one of their first acts after taking control of the House in January, Republicans passed two measures meant to highlight support for the anti-abortion movement while stopping short of advancing a federal restriction, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) proposed 15-week abortion ban that divided voters ahead of the midterms.
Given the divided Congress, the policy attempts have fallen on state legislatures, which are considering dozens of measures this year to ban or restrict abortion access, according to The Guttmacher Institute — and, in some cases, to limit ballot proposals that would put them before voters next year.
These new Republican efforts come on top of abortion restrictions already on the books, which have prompted a string of emotionally gripping stories about women seeking the medical procedure, such as the Texas woman who said her doctor told her she couldn’t end her unviable pregnancy due to the state’s laws — or the women there who are being sued for wrongful death after helping a friend obtain abortion medication. Advocates hope those stories will help keep the issue top of mind for voters concerned about the topic.
“Frankly, we are seeing the horrific impact of these bans with terrible stories every day of what women and their doctors are enduring,” said Laura Chapin, a Democratic strategist in Colorado, where she’s worked to advance abortion rights. “The impact of Republicans overturning Roe isn't hypothetical.”
But across the map, abortion’s salience as a voter’s No. 1 issue has receded. Intuitively, it’s dropped the least in places where it did not increase much in the first place such — largely non-Republican territory across the South. Still, it remains higher than it was before the Dobbs decision across the country, including in safe Democratic territory and toss-up districts such as Democratic Rep. Angie Craig’s in Minnesota’s Twin City suburbs and competitive districts won by Republicans in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
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