The Democrats’ abortion gambit continues to look risky

More evidence casts doubt on the idea that the party’s laser-like focus on abortion will pay dividends in November

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, a new conventional wisdom seems to be setting in among Democrats: that the issue of abortion (and the public’s disapproval of the Court’s decision) is a political winner for them heading into 2024, especially in what is shaping up to be a very close presidential election. Many proponents of this argument point specifically to the party’s continued overperformance in elections since the ruling was handed down, including the 2022 midterms and several off-year contests.

However, as I’ve written before, I believe there’s ample evidence that the party’s advantage on the issue may still not be enough to get President Biden over the hump in November.¹ And there were more signs this week to buttress that belief. First, the good folks over at

The Bulwark

shared findings from a recent focus group comprising 15 women in Pennsylvania—a key battleground state—all of whom voted for Trump in 2020 and are also pro-choice. Though the small size of focus groups means we can’t draw statistically significant conclusions from them, they are often a good way of digging into the why behind people’s views.

Even as threats to abortion access have grown since the Court’s ruling, most of the women in the group remained steadfast in their support for Trump, who nominated three of the justices who voted to overturn Roe. Fully 12 of the women said they planned to stick with him again this year while two now support Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Only one said she would switch her vote to Biden this time. Still, many of the women also said they were concerned about the threats to abortion rights:

Susan, 76, from Pittsburgh, explained, “I was unhappy with the decision because I think we took a big step backward in treating women as not equal, not intelligent enough to make their own choices, able to be controlled by men and their thinking. [The decision is] just a giant step backward.”

“The idea that in some states you can’t even get [an abortion], or most people don’t know they’re pregnant at six weeks—that’s terrifying to me,” remarked Amy, 41, from Collegeville.

“I would never have an abortion, but I think people should have a right to make their own choice,” commented Mary Beth, 69, from Springfield.

Olivia, 26, from Pittsburgh, added, “You don’t know their living situation at the moment, so they shouldn’t be forced to have kids.”

So how could most of these women justify sticking with Trump, who reportedly might sign a national 16-week abortion ban, and whose allies have made it eminently clear they will try to push him even further if he wins? Because many of them simply don’t prioritize abortion as much as other issues like the economy and national security:

Kathi, 62, from Shickshinny, said, “Unfortunately, it falls to like number five [on my priority list], like what I’m concerned about. It’s number five.”

Christine, 48, from Malvern, explained, “No one candidate is going to have policies that align with what I would like to see. . . . There are greater priorities [than abortion] that I would look at.”

Moreover, 14 of the participants were skeptical that Trump would actually sign a national ban, with one saying he must know that such a move would be “political suicide.” In other words, most of these women were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the issue.

In all, this focus group clarified a couple of things. First, it reinforced the reality of the pro-choice Trump voter, a phenomenon that tracks with numerous recent election results. Second, it demonstrated that although many voters are concerned about the future of abortion rights in America, some consider other issues more pressing.

Indeed, new polling this week reaffirmed the idea that other issues take precedence over abortion for many people—including key voting blocs. An Economist/YouGov survey asked Americans whether each of 15 issues was important to them. Among the ones they prioritized most were jobs (97 percent), inflation (96 percent), healthcare (95 percent), national security (94 percent), and taxes (94 percent). By comparison, only 76 percent said abortion was important, placing it 14th of the 15 issues. Notably, this was the exact same placement given by two groups whose interest in this issue could theoretically give Democrats a major boost—women and independents.

The survey also asked respondents to identify which of those 15 issues was most important to them. Here, again, abortion trailed several other issues, coming in seventh, with just five percent of respondents selecting it. The share of women, specifically, highlighting abortion as their most important issue was only a slightly higher seven percent, pushing it up one spot to sixth place. Overall, Americans remain more focused on resolving issues around the economy and national security.

These results mirrored other, longer-term tracking polls asking Americans which issues they find most important, such as one from Gallup, in which the share selecting abortion was a paltry two percent as of January.

It’s worth mentioning an important caveat here. As the focus group results indicated, many voters don’t actually seem to know Trump’s personal views about abortion. Democrats might therefore rightly argue that a campaign focused on this issue will help them change that reality—if they can convince skeptics that Trump really will further curtail abortion rights if he wins, it could potentially increase the issue’s salience with voters like the women in Pennsylvania.

However, even this may prove to be tricky, as Trump continues to play his cards deftly on matters related to reproductive rights. For starters, though his (reported) support for a 16-week national ban might strike many Democrats as extreme, the same Economist/YouGov poll found that a large plurality—48 percent—of Americans also support that idea, including pluralities of women (47 percent) and independents (43 percent). Moreover, Trump has shown a willingness to defy the most strident social conservatives on some issues, as he did just today by stating his support for IVF in the face of a highly unpopular ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court that jeopardized the future of the treatment for women across the country.

The problem facing Democrats is that while many Americans do think abortion is an important issue, several other matters continue to supersede it. And this is not a new development—polling from the past two years has shown this to be the case for some time now. Yet, many still insist abortion is something close to a trump card for the party this year (no pun intended). This, to me, is a sign that some Democrats may have overlearned the lessons of other recent elections in which the electorates that gave them big wins (largely thanks to post-Roe grassroots outrage) looked fundamentally different from the one that will turn out for this year’s presidential election.

Time will tell whether these Democrats knew something the rest of us didn’t. But, to paraphrase a question the focus group’s administrators posed, which is more akin to political suicide: Trump’s possible support for a 16-week abortion ban, or assuming that pro-choice independents and Trump voters will bolt from him to save Biden?

1. Another way to think about it is the abortion issue may be necessary to firing up Biden’s base voters but not sufficient to winning over enough swing voters who are otherwise skeptical of him.