The Democratic Party has received an injection of optimism when it needed it most. With the popularity of the president, Joe Biden, at rock bottom, Tuesday’s election night has left three important victories of different types for the Democrats in Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky, which have abortion as a common denominator. The victories come one year before the presidential elections, in which Biden is ranked behind his foreseeable rival, Republican Donald Trump, in the polls.
In Ohio, a referendum was voted, in Kentucky the governor was elected, and in Virginia, the state congressional chambers. In all three there was the right to abortion as a backdrop. With the referendum, Ohio protects it in its state Constitution. In Kentucky, a markedly Republican state, the governor, Andy Beshear, has focused much of his re-election campaign on criticizing his Republican rival for his initial support for an anti-abortion law that made no exceptions even in cases of incest. or rape. In Virginia, parliamentary control would have allowed Republicans to approve a law that limited abortion to the first 15 weeks of gestation and Democrats have used it as their main electoral argument. In all three cases, pro-abortion positions have prevailed.
The result shows that the defense of abortion continues to mobilize the Democratic electorate a year and a half after the Supreme Court repealed it as a constitutional right throughout the country and referred its regulation to the States. Republicans have tried unsuccessfully to focus the campaign on issues that have eroded Biden’s popularity, such as inflation, irregular immigration and crime. The result is a breath of hope for the Democratic leader’s attempt to achieve re-election in 2024.
The result, however, does not allow definitive conclusions to be drawn. Beshear, for example, has achieved re-election by disassociating himself from Biden and avoiding mentioning him, despite the Republican advertising bombardment against the president during the campaign to associate the two. During his four-year term, in which he has had to respond to several natural disasters, Beshear has achieved great popularity. Beyond abortion, re-election would not have been possible without his personal mark. He has achieved 52.5% of the votes, compared to 47.5% for Republican Daniel Cameron, who had Trump’s support.
For Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia, the vote is a blow to his undisguised presidential aspirations. At first, it appears to eliminate the possibility of a last-minute entry into the 2024 race. His timing may be 2028, but it is weakened after Democrats have not only retained the state Senate, but have also captured the Lower House, called the House of Delegates. Youngkin presented himself as a candidate capable of beating the Democrats on his own ground, but the facts have contradicted him. The abortion law that he proposed, a 15-week term law with exceptions in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life (similar to the Spanish one in force), has been relentlessly attacked by the Democratic campaign.
In the elections to the so-called House of Delegates, Danica Roem will become the first transgender senator in the State. She has defeated a former police officer in Fairfax County who supported a ban on transgender athletes competing in high school sports. The messages against trans people, on which Republicans have insistently embarked, have not given them the electoral result they expected.
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In Ohio, the proposal to protect abortion in the state Constitution has received support from 56% of voters. Ohio has been a swinging majority electorate, which used to set the political temperature of the country and where the winner was usually the one who reached the White House. That tradition was broken in 2020 with a clear state victory for Trump in the presidential election that Biden won. The vote on abortion is the seventh to be held in different states since the Supreme Court ruling last year. In all of them the defense of the right to abortion has won. In another consultation that was held simultaneously in Ohio this Tuesday, the consumption of marijuana was legalized.
Democrats plan to introduce new referendums on abortion that coincide with the presidential elections on November 5, 2024 in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada. It is a way to get their voters to the polls and attract independent voters and even moderate Republicans to their cause. Although Biden is a practicing Catholic, he defends the right to abortion and is in favor of passing a federal law to make it possible throughout the country. His campaign launched after this Tuesday’s results to remember Trump’s support for last year’s Supreme Court ruling.
Trump changed his position on abortion, which he initially defended. It remains a topic that he prefers not to address frequently at his campaign events, but the former president is the favorite of evangelical Christians, a key support of his electorate that he cannot give up. From what has been seen so far at the polls, it is in Republicans’ interest that the issue not be very present in the 2024 campaign, the first presidential elections to be held after the Supreme Court’s change of doctrine.
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