Reproductive Rights Could Prove Decisive At General Election

Democrats are touting a special election victory in Alabama’s 10^th state district this week as evidence that women’s reproductive rights will be the decisive political issue to win swing districts at the general election, as it was in the 2022 midterm elections.

• Reminder: Ahead of the 2022 midterms, a string of special elections and abortion related referendums were won by Democrats against the prevailing political environment which pointed towards a major Republican surge. Those results were largely dismissed as outliers rather than predictive of a shift in the electoral equation, leading to a major overestimation of Democrat weakness.
• Semafor reports: “If you had told us three years ago that running ads about abortion would help a Democrat win a red district in Alabama, we’d have said you were nuts. But here we are. Marilyn Lands became the latest Democrat to notch a post-Dobbs special election win this week with a campaign laser-focused on reproductive rights issues…. The final tallies were eye-popping: After narrowly losing the seat in 2022, Lands won by 25 points this time.”
• Politico notes: “The election was closely watched due to the Alabama Supreme Court’s recent controversial decision on in-vitro fertilization, an issue Lands emphasized alongside abortion rights in her campaign. The district she won was narrowly carried by former President Donald Trump in 2020.”
• National Republican Congressional Committee National press secretary Will Reinert downplayed the implications in a statement yesterday: “Drawing broader conclusions from a low turnout special election for a state representative seat is absurd.”