Abortion and the Mid-Term Election


Two things did not happen in Tuesday's election. One was a wave of women voting for abortion rights that was so large it overwhelmed everything else and caused Democrats to win the House and Senate in a big way. The other thing that did not happen was a "Red wave" of wins by Republicans that swamped Democrats and gave big majorities in both the House and Senate. These two things that did not happen explain what did happen. 

Mark Silk, a prominent Christian columnist, wrote today that about 27% of voters, according to exit polls, said abortion was the biggest issue and reason for voting. The only other issue this popular was inflation, about 31%. The other issues like crime, etc, Republicans crowed about were unimportant.

Of the 27% who said abortion was the most important issue, a large majority voted for democrats. A large majority of those who said inflation was important voted Republican. Mark Silk concluded the reversal of Roe and the draconian state laws against abortion crowded out inflation. That is, lots of those who might have put inflation at the top of their list replaced it with abortion and voted for Democrats. 

While there will be endless punditry about the election, it is clear anti-abortion is good issue for Democrats and a bad issue for Republicans. Claims that the Bible condemns abortion and that the fetus is a human being were not big winners.

The same analysis was made by another pundit who said women did not ignore the election or the abortion issue. Most of the media predicted wrongly. President Biden and Democrat strategists, however, were exactly right to talk about the loss of abortion rights right up to election day. 

Five states had measures involving abortion rights. Abortion rights appear to have won all five. If past experience is any predictor of the future, I think we will see Republican politicians backing off the anti-abortion bus. They were on it only to get votes and money. They need something else to ride.  

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