There was no doubt that the Supreme Court’s forthcoming abortion ruling, expected in the summer, would have a huge effect on this year’s interim campaigns. The problem was simply not expected to disrupt the competition so soon.
But with the expiration of a draft opinion this week signaling that the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Rowe v. Wade, candidates on the right and left are tackling the issue. Democrats, who want to maintain fine control of Congress, hope abortions will boost their electorate in an otherwise difficult year for the party – one characterized by low approval ratings for President Biden and frustration with the economy and inflation.
Stacey Abrams, the Democrat who is fighting for Georgia’s next governor in what will be one of the most closely watched contests in the country this autumn, has temporarily stopped raising funds for his campaign to raise money for human rights groups. on abortion.
And Georgia’s current governor, Brian Kemp, has been pushed to the right by his main rival, David Purdue, a Trump-backed former senator. Mr Purdue on Thursday pressured Mr Kemp to promise to convene a special session of the legislature to ban abortion altogether if the court lifted federal protections on abortion rights.
In the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, a new ad on Thursday from the super PAC, which backed David McCormick in the race, warns that Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former host of The Dr. Oz Show and a top Mr. McCormick’s rival will “betray us” because “it’s not completely pro-life.”
The issue may also raise the profile of a far lesser-known Republican candidate in the Pennsylvania race: Katie Barnett, a political commentator who said the only exception should be when a mother’s life is at stake. The morning after the draft decision was published, Ms Barnett wrote on Twitter that it was a “by-product of rape” and attached a four-minute video that had been viewed more than 350,000 times.
In North Carolina, where an open Senate seat drew crowded primary elections on both sides of the aisle, alleged Democratic nominee Cherry Beasley portrays Republicans in the race as extremists who oppose abortion “even in the event of incest, rape or maternal health.” which is at risk. “
The alleged Democrat nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, is not waiting for the winner of the Republican primary election on May 17 to be chosen to continue the attack. On Thursday, Mr Shapiro’s campaign aired a television commercial against State Senator Doug Mastriano, a leading Republican candidate, saying “he wants to ban abortion”.
The leak also raised the stakes in a critical Democratic rematch in Texas, where progressive lawyer Jessica Cisneros is running in a run-off on May 24 with Henry Cuelar, the only Democrat in Congress to vote against a House bill that would annulled the almost complete ban on abortions in Texas.
Minutes after the publication of the draft decision, she presented the competition as a chance to protect these rights.
In Arizona, where several Republicans are fighting for the chance to challenge Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat, Mr. Kelly presented the issue of abortion as a generational struggle for freedom. “It is wrong that my granddaughter may soon have fewer rights than my grandmother,” he wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.
Republican primary candidates in the race also addressed the issue. The Blake Masters, a venture capitalist, described abortion in graphic terms on Twitter, saying Mr Kelly “wants to force your country to allow it”.
Mark Bernovich, another leading Republican in the Arizona Senate primary and state attorney general, made the opposition to abortion a key point. He said the Supreme Court should send Rowe v. Wade “to the ashes of history, where it belongs.”
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