Consider This from NPR - As Election Day Nears, Democrats Rest Hopes On Abortion Rights

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Election day is less than three weeks away, and Democrats are trying desperately to hold on to their slim majority in Congress by focusing on abortion rights. But Republicans are betting that the economy and inflation are the most pressing issues for voters.So how is the focus on abortion working out for the Democrats? We discuss that with NPR Political Correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben and NPR Senior Editor and Correspondent Domenico Montanaro. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. It's less than three weeks until Election Day. The Senate is split down the middle and Democrats have a slim majority in the House, which means Democrats have almost zero margin for error in these midterm elections. And they're pulling out all the stops to try to keep control of Congress. We're only 22 days away from the most consequential election in our history, in my view. But Democrats are facing a huge challenge. On top of the delicate balance in Congress, they are battling President Biden's low approval ratings. Almost half of voters disapprove of Biden's job performance.

That's according to the latest NPR Marist poll. And that, as Democratic campaign consultant Liz Smith told NPR, will almost certainly have an impact at the ballot box. The history books show that an incumbent president is not a boost to their party in their midterms. So if Jesus Christ himself were an incumbent president, members of his political party would probably stiff arm him in a midterm election. The president, though, continues to try to boost his party's chances. On Tuesday, he sought to do that by urging young voters to show up to the polls with a speech focused on abortion rates. Elections where the choice and the stakes are crystal clear, especially when it comes to the right to choose.

Biden even held out a carrot for voters who help keep his party in power. The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade. And when Congress passes it, I'll sign it in January, 50 years after Roe was first decided the law of the land. And it's not just President Biden who's been focusing on abortion rights this campaign. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade back in June, Democrats running in congressional races across the country have been campaigning on abortion rights. In fact, they've spent about a third of their TV ad dollars on messages about abortion rights. The Supreme Court has taken away a woman's most fundamental freedom, control over her own body. A woman's right to choose is sacred. It's outrageous to mandate

what a woman can and can't do with their body. But it's not clear if the message is landing for Democrats. Republicans are betting it won't, that enough voters will rank inflation and the economy as more pressing concerns than abortion rights and give them the edge. Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi send inflation to a 40-year high. People can't afford food, can't afford their gas and home heating. Home prices are through the roof. I know it's skyrocketing gas prices and inflation mean to your family. Consider this.

Midterm elections have almost always been challenging for the party in power. As Election Day 2022 inches closer, will pressing for abortion rights work for Democrats trying to hold on to power? From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Thursday, October 20th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.

Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. The hope Democrats had this summer is fading. The Supreme Court's decision to end federal protection for abortion in June galvanized abortion rights advocates across the country in July, then August. This decision must not stand! This decision must not stand! galvanized abortion rights advocates across the country in July, then August.

This decision must not stand! This decision must not stand! Legal abortion on demand! Legal abortion on demand! After the Dobbs decision, Democrats won special house elections in several states, including Alaska. In August, Kansas voters soundly rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have banned abortion. It seemed for just a minute that maybe Democrats could gain a stronger majority in the Senate. Maybe they could even stop the GOP from taking back the House.

Since then, though, bad economic headlines have dominated. A new CNBC poll shows almost 60% of voters think there will be a recession in the next year. Races across the country have tightened. That's made putting abortion rights back into the center of the political conversation a priority for Democrats on the campaign trail. My colleague Elsa Chang talked to NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben and senior political editor Domenico Montanaro about how that's been working. Well, with Democratic voters and also Democratic-leaning independent voters, it's resonating quite a bit. And to be honest, it's not even necessarily that the Democratic messaging is doing the work here. It's just that a lot of these voters heard the Dobbs decision and were so upset. And after that, we're looking for candidates who were just as upset as they were. Here is Wisconsin voter Joelle Beth Tim. I met her this summer when she

answered the door to a canvasser for Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes. I'm pretty angry and, you know, I have some t-shirts that say, you know, mind your own uterus. So they're getting a lot of wear recently. So, yeah, it's absolutely an issue. Absolutely. Quite frankly, it's probably the number one issue that I voted on in my life. Now, of course, it's not every Democrat for whom this is number one. I mean, there are a lot of concerns out there, but there are so many voters who have their own personal stories, who know their friends' and family's personal stories. There are a lot of those people, and they are very, very fired up.

Right. Okay, well, obviously, Domenico, Democratic voters are not all the same. So I'm curious, what kinds of breakdowns do you see on age, on gender, on race when you look at polling on abortion? Like, for example, do women's voting patterns seem to be changing? Well, first of all, abortion rights as an issue has clearly fired Democrats up across the board. And that's a huge thing because, you know, historically, the party in power loses seats, lots of seats in the House, 26 seats on average since World War II, for example. And Republicans only need five seats to pick up the House. So that's a big deal to have that sort

of that water sort of rise for Democrats to be able to go to the polls. Women, of course, are a key pillar of the Democratic Party, in particular, younger, unmarried, college educated women, a huge Democratic core group who Democrats need to get out to the polls. And we've clearly seen that they've been way more enthusiastic about voting post-Dobbs as opposed to before it. And that's really important because Republicans had a huge advantage when it came to the overall environment, inflation, the president's low job ratings. And this has really been able to fire up Democratic voters in a way, in particular women, that we hadn't seen before that. Right. Well, you know, as we've been saying, we saw a lot of organizing around abortion when it came to voter registration, fundraising, etc.

I am wondering, like, has that enthusiasm remained strong now, several months on, or has it waned? It's still very strong amongst the people who care. I mean, my sense is that the enthusiasm is pretty baked in at this point. I mean, people who were energized by Dobbs very much still are. But as far as persuasion, it's hard to imagine Democrats swinging someone over to their side on this. Now, it is true that we have seen bumps in women registering to vote in some states since the Dobbs decision. And that's no small thing. The big question for Democrats is if they can continue doing that.

And furthermore, if it's this topic, reproductive rights or something else that will get voters out the door. And you did mention Kansas. And on that note, it's not necessarily that we're going to learn a lot from Kansas here, because in Kansas, that vote was on one single constitutional amendment about reproductive rights. And in that race, I can tell you it was not hard to find independent and even Republican voters who were willing to vote for abortion rights. But this is not that. This is midterm elections where there are a lot of other issues at play. And Republican voters just aren't thinking about reproductive rights as much. They're thinking about what their candidates

are talking about, inflation, crime, immigration, a whole lot of other things. Well, Domenico, are there any particular key races where abortion is playing an outsized role at this point. You know, there's only about half a dozen or so really competitive Senate races that are likely going to decide the chamber. And it's playing in all of them, frankly. You know, from Georgia to Arizona, we're seeing it all over the place. And we're seeing it all over the place in congressional ads. I've actually, frankly, been surprised in House races how much it's been used because so many of these places that are swing districts are center-right districts.

And not only is that anecdotally telling me that it's key with independents who Democrats so badly need to win over to win those seats, but it also shows up in the data as well that we've seen majorities of independents say that the Supreme Court's decision actually makes them more likely to vote in this election and overwhelmingly for Democrats. So that's why you see Republicans using crime, for example, as one way to try to offset Democrats' perceived advantage with suburban white women to sort of pull at their dueling priorities. Danielle, as we've just heard Domenico explain that there are some moderate voters out there that could be influenced by

the abortion issue. How are Republicans approaching the issue of abortion access? You know, Democrats, they keep talking about it. It feels like Republicans just want to talk about anything else, right? Right. Republican candidates, as far as I've seen, they're not bringing it up if they don't have to, which is to say they will talk about it when they are attacked on it. And when they are attacked, they tend to have a sort of two-pronged response. One is they counter by trying to argue that their Democratic opponents are the ones who are extreme on abortion. Many of them also argue that states should be the ones deciding what abortion policy should be. Now, the benefit of that response for those Republican candidates is that it doesn't mean endorsing any particular solution or position that one could argue against.

What it means is that those candidates don't have to come down specifically on what they want to do, just how they want to do it. The interesting thing here, though, about this idea of which party is extreme on abortion, as Republicans, Daniel rightly points out, have tried to paint Democrats as extremists because so many ads across the country are painting them as people who want no restrictions, even though that's not necessarily true in some cases. Democrats have also responded in many ads, sometimes in misleading ways, to say that Republican candidates are in favor of – want no exceptions on abortion rights, even in places where that's not the case.

There's a handful of races I can think of where the Republican candidate in particular has actually said that they are in favor of exceptions and it doesn't matter. And that's because it's a lot harder to fire up somebody, to fire up your base with a more nuanced sort of take on this. But the lines of delineation are pretty clear here with Democrats far more on the side of wanting abortion rights to be codified and Republicans not. Well, Domenico, as you mentioned earlier, Republicans are instead focused on inflation and on crime, like hoping that fears about economic uncertainty will deliver them this huge victory in November. I am wondering, does the polling indicate that that is a safe bet for them to make? Inflation is still overwhelmingly the top issue. And clearly, that's the reason why they're using that, because it's far easier to just blame President Biden and

Democrats for inflation when polling is showing that people overwhelmingly trust Republicans more right now on the economy. So Republican strategists will say focus on the economy. They're using crime and immigration as well as ways to also fire up their base and again, to sort of try to mitigate Democrats' advantage with suburban women. That was NPR senior political editor Domenico Montanaro and political correspondent Daniel Kurtzleben. We also heard reporting from NPR's Tamara Keefe earlier in the episode. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability,

upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org.