Democrats’ 2024 advantage: Abortion ballot measures in key states

“As we have seen in other states where abortion rights were at stake on the ballot,” Democratic pollster and consultant Tom Bonier noted online, “We saw big surges in turnout among women and younger voters. The electorate was +6 women, as compared to +3 women in the ’22 election.” Women disproportionately vote Democratic.

And if you look back to 2022, abortion and specifically abortion measures turned out to be a huge Democratic boost. KFF’s analysis showed: “About four in ten (38%) voters overall said that the Supreme Court decision ending the constitutional right to an abortion had a major impact on their decision about whether to vote in [the 2022] election.”

For some groups, KFF said, it was a “a major motivator” — specifically “Black women under age 50 (61%), Hispanic women under age 50 (58%), those who voted for Democratic Congressional candidates (56%), first-time voters (54%), voters under age 30 (53%), and those who said they were angry about the Supreme Court’s abortion decision (55%).”

A Tufts University research and polling center also found a strong impact of concern about abortion rights among the younger voters in 2022. “Their voter turnout was the second-highest level of youth participation in at least 30 years,” the center found, and among these young voters (18 to 29) “abortion was the top issue influencing their vote, followed by inflation and crime, out of five possible choices which they were presented.” Eighty percent of young voters who say abortion should be legal in all or most cases voted for a Democrat in House elections.

The abortion rights issue is especially powerful where voters fear losing those rights. States with abortion-related ballot measures have seen the biggest impact, Bonier wrote in the New York Times last month, “but similar effects have been felt in states like Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona, where the issue was at the forefront of campaign messaging.”

In short, abortion drives voters traditionally more Democratic to the polls who might not have otherwise voted. And, for voters who favor abortion rights (about 60 percent nationwide), the issue plays a strong role in determining for whom to vote.

There are reasons to believe that abortion rights concerns will be as important, if not more important, in 2024. For one thing, horror stories of women put at risk by restrictive abortion laws and prosecuted or denied care after a miscarriage continue to grow. The jig is up; these laws endanger women. In making an abortion ban a national issue, Republicans have made virtually every race in every state a referendum on abortion.

With the Supreme Court’s announcement on Wednesday that it will take up a case involving FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, the potential for another inflammatory attack on women’s health by the right-wing majority (and an ensuing backlash) cannot be ignored.

Moreover, abortion ballot measures will appear in 2024 in key states. In Arizona, one of the most hotly contested states in 2020 (and one with a key Senate race in 2024), “Arizona for Abortion Access, a coalition of reproductive rights groups, is collecting signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot that would guarantee a right to abortion,” reports the 19th, an online news site covering gender, politics and policy. The amendment would make abortion legal until fetal viability, generally considered about 23 to 24 weeks into pregnancy.

Arizona is hardly the only swing state that might feature an abortion measure. “Abortion rights advocates are in the process of trying to get constitutional amendments preserving access to abortion on the ballot in … Florida and Nevada,” Axios reports. Colorado abortion advocates are gathering signatures to allow public funding of abortions; opponents may put their own measure on the ballot.

Even in states not competitive at the presidential level — such as deep-blue New York and Maryland or deep-red states such as Missouri, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota — abortion ballot measures might impact down-ballot races. Missouri will likely feature a proposal to allow rape and incest exceptions to its strict abortion ban.

These measures may well boost Democrats’ chances in competitive Senate races (e.g., incumbent Democrat Jon Tester of Montana) and swing House districts (especially in New York, which will feature a new congressional map). We saw in Virginia in 2023 how Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s focus on abortion backfired, helping Democrats to capture both state houses.

Millions of Americans know that forced-birth laws pose a threat to women’s health and well-being. As with the 2022 midterms, Democrats would do well to emphasize that point in the 2024 campaign.