After the expected red wave seems to have been little more than a red ripple, are any centrist pundits going to renew their calls for a federal compromise on abortion? Prior to the election, I saw essay after essay preemptively lambasting Democrats for being too focused on this supposedly fringe women’s issue. Surely, talking so much about wombs would lead them down the primrose path to electoral defeat.
That didn’t pan out.
While it would be reductionist to claim that concerns over abortion were the sole driver of Democrats’ strong turnout in Tuesday’s midterm election — weak Republican candidates and their lack of any specific economic plan other than “not being Joe Biden” also deserve plenty of blame — it does seem clear that fears of a post-Roe rollback in reproductive rights were a decisive factor. According to early exit polls, abortion was Democratic voters’ top concern; in Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman won an unexpected victory to take a Senate seat from Republicans, 36% of voters said abortion was their top issue, compared with 29% who cited inflation. Turnout was high, especially for a midterm.
