the republicans kind of did this sh*t to themselves.
abortion was a major problem for them in the midterms in '22 and IF Trump loses in November the abortion issue will have been a huge factor in why.
Abortion has been a rock around Republican electoral necks ever since Dobbs.
Can you explain this?
Abortion was a sort of political non-issue for decades since Roe. It was a SCOTUS determination so the only REAL fight was based on who would be President and appoint SCOTUS justices. The right promised to appoint people who would overturn Roe, while the left promised to appoint people who would uphold Roe. Beyond that, nothing happened at the Federal level and only battling around the margins occurred at the state level.
The Right got what they wanted, Roe was overturned, and now this is a political hot potato in MANY states. Isn't this what they were asking for? I don't understand how the left has weaponized it, other than potentially realizing it's a wedge issue that Republicans are going to lose on, so they're pushing it hard, likely for boosting turnout.
I'll take a crack at it:
From Roe (1973) until Dobbs (2022) Abortion was a GREAT issue for Republicans electorally. It may not seem like it, but let me explain:
There is a background issue that has to be understood. First is the issue of to whom the Abortion issue is decisive. To understand this, oversimplify and divide the electorate into four groups:
- Pro-Choice and also generally agrees with Democrats on other issues.
- Pro-Life and also generally agrees with Republicans on other issues.
- Pro-Choice but otherwise generally agrees with Republicans.
- Pro-Life but otherwise generally agrees with Democrats.
Electorally Abortion is a complete non-issue for groups #1 and #2 because it aligns with their general politics. Ie, if you take the issue away, their vote doesn't change.
Groups #3 and #4 are the ones that need a closer look. For these folks, their view on Abortion aligns with the opposite party to their general political alignment. Thus, these folks have a choice to make in any given election of either voting for the candidate who represents their views on Abortion or the candidate who represents the rest of their views generally.
The Left/Democrats/Media refer to Abortion as a "women's issue" and they generally think that means that nearly all women are pro-choice and thus the abortion issue helps them with women and hurts Republicans. It isn't that simple. Abortion is a "women's issue". If you look at the polling, it is MUCH more important to women than men but this isn't true only for Pro-Choice women, it is true for both Pro-Choice and Pro-Life women. Ie, very few men vote on the basis of Abortion. This is MUCH more common among women on BOTH sides of the issue.
The Left/Media/Democrats frequently talk about the "Gender Gap" where Women are more Democratic than men but the bigger (and more important) differential is the "Marriage Gap" which gets almost no discussion. Married people of both genders, all races, all incomes, and all education levels vote substantially more Republican than similarly situated single people.
Back to groups #3 and #4. Since Abortion is not a very high priority issue for men generally, very few men actually decide their vote based on it. Obviously a lot of men are in groups #1 and #2 where it doesn't matter and the men in group #3 tend to vote Republican even though they are pro-choice because Abortion isn't a high priority issue for them. Similarly, the men in group #4 tend to vote Democratic even though they are pro-life because Abortion isn't a high priority issue for them.
Consequently, the vast majority of voters who "cross the aisle" from their general alignment to their Abortion alignment are women. You would think that would HELP Democrats because more than half of women favor Abortion rights but it isn't that simple. A huge (although indeterminate) percentage of those women align with Democrats generally anyway so Abortion cannot be said to be decisive. Again, Abortion only decides your vote if you vote against your general political alignment because of the Abortion issue.
Not surprisingly, younger and single women (and frequently those are one-and-the-same) are more pro-choice than older and married women. The thing is that younger and single women also lean more Democratic generally so for the most part, Democrats aren't picking up any votes there due to Abortion. Those are votes they would get anyway.
My guess is that there are a not insignificant number of older/married women in group #4. They are generally liberal because they want to protect people but they extend that protection to protecting the unborn. This puts them in conflict because their position on Abortion aligns with Republicans but their position on most other issues aligns with Democrats. These are votes that Republicans DID get some of between Roe and Dobbs.
The other side of this coin is that so long as Roe existed, Republicans didn't lose too many votes for their Pro-Life position because so long as Roe was in place, people could reason that it didn't matter. Once that went away it hurt Republicans three ways:
- All those pro-life but otherwise Democratic leaning women in group #4 who had been voting Republican to get Roe overturned no longer needed to vote Republican.
- Anyone in group #3 (Pro-Choice but otherwise generally Republican) could no longer count on Roe to protect Abortion rights while voting Republican for other reasons because Roe was gone.
- It energized pro-choice voters and reminded all those group #3 voters of a reason for them to vote Democratic.
