NY Times Analysis: The Abortion Bump Is Over for Democrats

Is it possible Democrats engulfed themselves by announcing that blue states like California would work overtime to become abortion sanctuaries?

The takeaway from an outraged Democratic voter perspective is that at first, they thought abortion was made illegal nationwide, and they must vote in November to save it. Then, Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom announced California would serve women all over the country to pay for abortion-related travel expenses to have the procedure in his state. Then, other states like Colorado joined in and it became abundantly clear that abortion legality would now vary from state to state, as it did prior to the original Roe v. Wade ruling.

In other words, abortion didn’t become illegal overnight due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a point that many didn’t quite grasp at first due to bad media reporting and a simple misunderstanding of what the original Supreme Court ruling achieved in 1973.

This isn’t to say that all the uproar among hardcore progressives over abortion has subsided, it certainly hasn’t. The question of how broad that outrage reaches and how many people will vote in November with abortion as their top issue remains to be seen.

It’s in this context that Nate Cohn, data analyst for the New York Times, offers Democrats some words of caution moving forward:

For most of the summer, President Biden and the Democrats had the political winds at their backs.

They saw their poll numbers rise as gas prices fell, as the Supreme Court refocused voters on abortion, and as the Jan. 6 hearings and the investigation into Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents turned the media’s attention toward an unpopular former president — rather than the current one.

But with six weeks until this November’s midterm elections, there are a few signs that the political winds may have begun to blow in a different direction — one that might help Republicans over the final stretch. The political spotlight may be drifting back toward issues where Republicans have an advantage, like the economy and immigration.

The underlying reasoning for Cohn’s assertions? Google search trends have changed and now the economy has once again taken the top spot over abortion as voters start to zero in on their November choices:

Yes, it’s just a Google search trend line, a non-scientific way to measure what’s happening nationally. However, in this digital age, it directly reflects what’s on the minds of people, many of whom will end up being midterm voters.

Note the massive spike after the Roe v. Wade ruling was announced as interest peaked and people tried to understand what this would mean for their day-to-day lives. Turns out, for the vast, vast majority of people, it’s inflation and the economy causing them the most grief and the most financial impact. Abortion is like a holy sacrament for the left. It’s an ordinance defended like a religious ritual for a select slice of the electorate. The problem for the Democratic Party is that the abortion slice is only so big.

Coupled with the Google search trends, Cohn puts the rest of the puzzle together to wonder if Republicans are starting to see some upside from Democrats continuing to run on a single issue:

So far, there aren’t many signs that the shifting winds have begun to reshape the race for Congress. But if you look carefully, there are at least a couple of tantalizing clues. Mr. Biden’s approval ratings haven’t increased this month, and Republicans appear to have made some modest gains in a handful of key Senate races, like Wisconsin’s.

The so-called generic ballot polls, which ask whether voters prefer Democrats or Republicans, haven’t really changed quite yet. Democrats still enjoy a slight lead, according to FiveThirtyEight.

But this weekend, two polls showed Republicans with a lead among likely voters — including an ABC/Washington Post poll showing Republicans up by five percentage points among likely voters. It may prove to be an outlier, or perhaps it’s the first sign of a material shift in the race.

Give it another week or two for things to play out. If Biden keeps bumbling into the midterms trying to explain away inflation and pretends to empathize after months of not caring, it may turn out that the economy will sink Democrats worse than they realize.

The race changed with the Roe v. Wade ruling, but given inflation and the economy, it hasn’t changed enough to save Democrats from a rough November.