Will Abortion Change the Midterms Outcome? NewsWire

NewsWire: 5/23/22

• Will the Supreme Court draft opinion on abortion boost Democrats in the midterms? Though enthusiasm among Democratic voters has risen, most indicators still point to a GOP victory. (Monmouth University)
• NH: Late last month, we reported that Democrats’ prospects in the midterms were looking dire. Polls showed that voters favored the GOP on nearly every issue they consider a top priority (see “The GOP’s Advantage on Inflation”). Since then, the May 2 Supreme Court leak has unleashed a tidal wave of activism among Democrats concerned about abortion rights. In the 24 hours after the leak, the online fundraising platform ActBlue received $12M in donations.
• Is the prospect of overruling Roe v. Wade a game changer?
• Each party has a case to make. Democratic leaders are pointing to surveys showing that abortion has moved up as an important issue for voters, especially Democratic voters--which may improve their turnout. They also point out that a sizeable majority of Americans say they don't want Roe v. Wade to be overruled. Republicans respond that public attitudes toward abortion are more divided and conflicted than Democrats believe. And, most important, they say that all the bottom-line indicators continue to point to a decisive GOP midterm victory.
• Since the leak, Democratic candidates have raced to put abortion rights at the center of their campaign messaging. Their efforts have succeeded to this extent: Polls from Monmouth University, NBC News, and Morning Consult all show that abortion has become a bigger concern among voters. In the Monmouth poll, 25% of U.S. adults chose abortion as the top issue influencing their congressional vote out of a list of six choices, up from just 9% in a similar survey in 2018. Among Democrats and independents, these shares are 32% and 26%, respectively. Four years ago, fewer than one in ten in either group said the same. The share of Republicans naming abortion as their top issue (17%) has not changed.
• Even before the leak happened, there were signs that abortion was beginning to motivate more Democrats. After the Supreme Court allowed a strict abortion law to go into effect in Texas last September, the share of Biden voters who said abortion was a “very important” issue for them rose, while the share of Trump voters who felt that way fell. Traditionally, pro-life voters have rated the issue as more important than pro-choice voters.

• Democrats are also correct that the Sam Alito draft summarizes a position that would not win if it were put to an up-or-down popular vote. In an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 64% of Americans said that they do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned. This is close to the share of Americans (roughly 60%) who believe that abortion should be mostly or always legal.
• So will this aroused concern translate into votes? Perhaps. According to the NPR poll, 49% of Americans say they are more likely to vote in November if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Democrats (66%) are more likely than Republicans (40%) to say this. This lines up with NBC News’s findings that Democratic interest in the midterms has spiked since the leak. In March, 40% of Democrats expressed a high level of interest (either a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale) in the midterms. As of May 10, this enthusiastic about voting in November has gone from 48% at the start of May to 54% now. 
• Republicans say that the Democrats' claims are overblown. They point out that the American public is not very knowledgeable about abortion--either about what the Roe ruling actually says, what overturning it would mean, or how their own state laws currently affect the availability of abortion. 
• They also argue that attitudes towards abortion are notoriously difficult to measure, because most people do not see it as a black-or-white issue. (See "Increased Support for Legal Abortion.") Only a small share of Americans believe that abortion should always be legal (19%) or illegal with no exceptions (8%). Support for Roe, in other words, may mean simply that Americans believe abortion should be available sometimes.
• Republicans are on firmer ground when they say that none of the objective indicators for the outcome of the midterms have changed much since the Roe v. Wade leak.
• Yes, the Democrats’ enthusiasm has risen. But it still remains below the Republicans' (54% to 61%), which is a much better position for the GOP than in February, when the two parties were roughly tied in enthusiasm. Meanwhile, when voters are asked which issues they consider “very important,” inflation still leads abortion by a large margin (79% vs. 52%).
• The overall favorability measures, moreover, remain pretty much the same. According to the Associated Press/NORC, President Biden’s approval rating fell last week to the lowest of his presidency: 39%. And when it comes to control of Congress, voters still favor the GOP by about the same margin they enjoyed at the end of April.

• Futures markets, for their part, have also shrugged off the abortion issue. The day after the leak, the odds that Democrats would control the House or the Senate spiked, but have since sunk again. They remain slightly elevated compared to pre-leak, but still favor a GOP landslide.