Why Democrats can’t rely on abortion ballot initiatives to help them win

Although abortion referendums drew relatively high turnout for off-year elections, 2024 is the first test of the phenomenon in a presidential election year. | POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP

Democrats are scrambling to put state abortion-rights initiatives on the ballot this year in the hope that the measures will drive turnout and boost their candidates in national and local elections.

But those initiatives may not give Democrats the lift they are aiming for, according to a POLITICO analysis of five abortion-related measures that have appeared on the ballot since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

Voters decisively upheld abortion rights in every single case. But those margins were largely driven by Republican voters who also voted for GOP candidates. And Democratic turnout didn’t consistently increase in states with abortion referendums compared to those without. Several Democrats who were on the same ballots as abortion measures lost their races. Meanwhile, many Democrats who ran as champions of abortion rights even in states without accompanying referendums outperformed expectations.

“It would be unwise for candidates in either party to think that an abortion-rights ballot initiative will automatically determine who wins or loses a race,” cautioned John LaBombard, a longtime adviser of swing- and red-state Democrats, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “On the margins, ballot initiatives can help illuminate differences between the candidates — even in deeply red states where voters are increasingly likely to vote based on partisanship. But voters can view them separately from the initiative itself.”

Efforts are underway to put abortion rights on the 2024 ballot in around a dozen states, including Arizona, Nevada and Florida, states that could have an outsized impact on control of the Senate and the presidential election.

As President Joe Biden signals he will make abortion a key plank of his reelection bid, and Democrats up and down the ballot work to channel ongoing public outrage over abortion bans, both Republican and Democratic strategists say the issue remains toxic for the GOP and that ballot initiatives could force candidates on both sides to talk about it and provide voters with a clear contrast.

“It’s not necessarily a death knell for Republicans but it is a net negative,” said Stan Barnes, a political consultant and former Republican state senator in Arizona, where progressive groups are working to put an abortion-rights amendment before voters. “The ballot measure drives the point and it compels candidates to take a position, and that can be a difficult thing to do for a pro-life candidate because most people want some sort of legal abortion right.”

Democrats running in states where abortion-rights initiatives are in the works say they are not relying on the measures themselves — they plan to keep abortion front and center of their campaigns whether or not the issue is literally on the ballot.

In ruby-red Montana, for example, an initiative that would protect abortion rights is underway. But the reelection campaign of Sen. Jon Tester, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in 2024, told POLITICO it plans to emphasize abortion regardless.

2024 is poised to have the most abortion-rights ballot initiatives since Roe was overturned, with campaigns in the works in blue states like Maryland and red havens like Nebraska. Some of the measures would restore abortion access where it’s banned, while others would add protections and resources where the procedure is legal.

In New York, for example, left-leaning groups are pushing an amendment protecting abortion rights as part of an explicit strategy to boost Democratic turnout and swing key congressional races in 2024. The plan came on the heels of disastrous midterms for New York Democrats that fueled the GOP’s success in flipping the House.

And in Florida, progressive groups are scrambling to gather enough signatures by February to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would nullify the state’s 15-week and 6-week abortion bans.

Those initiatives are likely to draw some support from Republican voters. The POLITICO analysis of data from five states that have held abortion referendums since 2022 shows varied levels of crossover voting, with a decisive share of voters in some states backing both Republican candidates and abortion rights.

That underscores the ambiguity for 2024, when a handful of states will have abortion rights on the same ballot as GOP candidates who support abortion restrictions. And although abortion referendums drew relatively high turnout for off-year elections, 2024 is the first test of the phenomenon in a presidential election year, when millions of voters who sat on the sidelines for the referendums are expected to cast ballots.

In Ohio, Republicans made up a greater share of the vote in the November 2023 abortion referendum than Democrats, according to a POLITICO analysis of voter records showing participation in partisan primaries over the last two years.

The geographic breakdown of votes in other states also did not indicate a surge in Democratic turnout.

In California, for example, 66.9 percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights in 2022 — more than 7 points ahead of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s reelection bid.

The measure succeeded in spite of low Democratic turnout: Turnout from 2020 to 2022 dropped the most in strong Democratic counties compared to Republican-inclined ones. Abortion rights still won big, driven by Republican crossover voters, but lower turnout among Democrats contributed to the party’s struggles down ballot.

The effect of the ballot measures is even murkier in red states.

In Kentucky, where voters rejected a referendum last year that would have denied constitutional protections for abortion, turnout in the state’s handful of blue counties was about 2.5 percentage points better than the rest of the state. But that slight bump was not enough to boost Democratic candidates — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) won reelection by 23 points.

The political impact, however, varies from state to state, and Democrats who insist the referendums can make a difference point to Michigan. Voters there enshrined abortion rights in their state constitution in 2022, handed Democrats the majority in both legislative chambers for the first time in decades and reelected Democrats Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Jill Alper, the DNC’s former political director and a Michigan-based campaign consultant, pointed in particular to women outpacing men in voter registrations leading up to the vote and the surge in youth turnout — which increased in the state by 3.8 percentage points even as it declined nationwide compared to the 2018 midterms.

“There was something real at work there,” she said. “People are seeing this as an issue of freedom versus government interference, and I think it was pretty important to Whitmer’s victory.”

Still, the effects of the referendum are difficult to parse in Michigan. The state’s implementation of automatic and same-day voter registration likely also boosted youth turnout. And turnout was strong in both heavily Democratic and heavily Republican areas. Abortion rights outperformed Whitmer’s 10-point margin the most in heavily Republican areas, suggesting the significance of crossover voters who voted for abortion rights but against Whitmer on the same ballot.

The issue of abortion has also helped Democrats prevail in states that did not directly put the question of access to voters, such as in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

“These purple and red states … really showed that voters will come out to protect abortion access, regardless of whether or not it’s on the ballot as an initiative or as a legislative action, or if it’s a big contrast between the two candidates,” said Kate Letzler Moore, who is managing former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s (D-Fla.) Senate campaign. “We believe that the same will be true in Florida.”

Abortion messaging didn’t stop Florida Democrat Val Demings from losing to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio by double digits in the 2022 Senate race. But Letzler Moore insists that the dynamics are different this year because Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has enacted a six-week ban that is currently blocked by the courts but could take effect anytime. She said the campaign will emphasize abortion rights and target Republican Sen. Rick Scott over his position regardless of whether the initiative moves forward — although it would “obviously help if it is on the ballot.”

Democrats hope the initiatives make the topic unavoidable for Republicans, many of whom have tried to skirt the issue.

“[Abortion] being on the ballot reminds people, it makes it even more salient,” said Nichole Johnson, campaign manager for Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running for Senate in Arizona as a Democrat. “But regardless, it is going to be important.”

Peter Koltak, a Democratic strategist advising Nevada’s abortion-rights ballot initiative, said he expects the measure would increase turnout among younger voters, women, and Latino and Black voters — groups that typically support Democrats.

The evidence of that kind of turnout impact is mixed. Youth turnout, for example, did rise in some states with referendums, including Kansas, Michigan and Ohio — but also in some states without such initiatives, like Pennsylvania’s 2022 election, where abortion was a key electoral issue but was not on the ballot.

Democratic campaigns are also finding that the abortion-rights messaging long assumed to scare away conservative voters is winning them over, especially if it’s framed as a fight against government overreach.

In Montana, where Democrats’ Senate majority could hinge on Tester’s reelection, his campaign manager, Shelbi Dantic, said he plans to emphasize the issue even if the state’s abortion-rights initiative doesn’t hit its signature goal by June.

“They don’t want the government telling them what they can and can’t do,” Dantic said of the state’s electorate, which rejected an anti-abortion referendum in 2022. “Montanans care a lot about personal freedom.”

Ohio Democrats are similarly banking on voters remembering their support for last year’s state’s abortion-rights measure — confident that it’s more important for them to be seen as strong advocates for access and to draw a contrast with their opponents than to share the ballot with a referendum.

“Once voters realize how out of the mainstream some Republicans are on this issue, it makes it hard for them to win support from one crucial group of voters in particular: suburban women,” LaBombard said. “We saw that in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, and it’s amplified in battleground states where control of the House and Senate will be up for grabs.”