Abortion an ‘urgent’ mobilizer to the polls as candidates seek middle ground
Dr. Kristyn Brandi was a regular voter who otherwise wasn’t particularly politically active until 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down abortion rights in a landmark decision known as Dobbs.
Since then, as states have increasingly restricted or even banned the procedure, Brandi — an Englewood obstetrician-gynecologist who provides abortions — has testified before Congress, opined in the press and on podcasts about reproductive rights, joined like-minded politicians at rallies, and even stocked her waiting room with voter registration forms.
“It seems more urgent now,” Brandi said. “It’s becoming more and more clear that this election is going to make a difference in whether we get Roe restored and people across the country have access to abortion again, or we don’t and potentially have more restrictions nationwide, including in New Jersey.”
That’s a message many congressional candidates have taken on the campaign trail as the Nov. 5 election — the first presidential election since Dobbs — approaches. While state legislators have codified abortion rights in New Jersey, protections here could fall if Republicans take the White House and Senate, retain the House, and act to further restrict abortion nationally, Democrats say.
That likely will drive voters from both ends of the political spectrum to the ballot box, said Dan Cassino, a professor of government and law at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the executive director of the school’s poll.
“There’s plenty of voters who are going to show up at the polls because they want to vote for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump and have absolutely no idea who’s running in their House or in the Senate race. At the top of the ticket, abortion is a major issue that leaks down to the rest of the ticket. It is mobilizing voters who otherwise wouldn’t have come out to vote,” Cassino said.
A red herring or an end of women’s rights?
Republican strategist Jeanette Hoffman thinks the abortion issue might be a bit of a red herring in New Jersey.
“In Washington, D.C., people care about abortion, but in New Jersey, they know it’s not something that we have to worry about. This issue is so settled in state law that no one is going to lose their rights to choice or health care. Dobbs threw it back to the states. Voters are smart enough to know that,” she said. “Democrats are trying to nationalize this issue in New Jersey because they are not doing well on the economy under Joe Biden, inflation, the border, and all the chaos on foreign policy.”
Cassino begs to differ, though, pointing to the public’s apathy and ignorance about government.
“You’re assuming a level of knowledge about federalism that is just not in the voting public,” he said. “Voters do not understand the difference between state law and federal law.”
Voters do understand, though, that federal law trumps state law, Sue Altman said, adding that should make anyone concerned about abortion stampede to the polls.
Altman, the Democrat challenging GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in the 7th Congressional district, warned that federal lawmakers could outlaw abortion altogether if the GOP sees gains in the coming election.
“If (House Speaker) Mike Johnson has the gavel again and Donald Trump is elected president, there’s a very, very good chance that they will enact a national abortion ban,” Altman said. “I grew up in the 1990s, I’m class of 2000, and it makes me sick to my stomach that I may have already lived through the high watermark of women’s rights in my life, and if that itself is not enough of an issue, then I don’t know what is.”
Brandi, the Englewood doctor, said abortion bans only drive women to other states for abortion care. Before Dobbs, she had out-of-state patients “not really at all.”
“Now it’s a daily occurrence where we’re seeing somebody from a restricted state that’s traveling all the way to New Jersey,” she said. Forty-one states have restricted or prohibited the procedure altogether since Dobbs.
Cassino doubts a national ban will happen, saying: “I’m not sure you can get 60 votes in the Senate to agree on what kind of pizza to order. There’s no way to get a compromise on abortion that’s going to get 60 votes.”
Still, he agreed the specter of a national ban has driven some Republicans to embrace a moderate label, as Kean and Curtis Bashaw, the Republican running against Democrat Rep. Andy Kim for former Sen. Bob Menendez’s seat, have done in announcing they’re pro-choice.
A costly signal
Polls have shown growing numbers of people who say both that abortion should be legal under any circumstances and that political candidates must share their abortion views.
“If I am someone like Sue Altman, this represents an opportunity,” Cassino said. “New Jersey historically has been full of voters who are fiscally conservative but socially liberal. So if you can use abortion to turn those voters, that’s maybe where she finds the voters she needs.”
Altman has hammered Kean as a “proven liar” whose actions have belied his words. He has repeatedly voted against codifying abortion rights both in Congress and the New Jersey Legislature, and he hasn’t signed on to a bipartisan bill to protect access to in-vitro fertilization, she said.
“The question to voters is, when it comes down to it, if the Republicans hold the House and national abortion ban legislation is put on Tom Kean’s desk, will he, for the first time in his life, stand up against party leadership and vote it down? Or will he do what clearly history shows he’s consistent in doing — will he ignore the will of the people of the district he represents and will he vote with party leadership?” Altman said.
Kean declined the New Jersey Monitor’s request for an interview.
For both Kean and politicians of all kinds, Cassino noted, announcing one’s stance on abortion is “a costly signal.”
“Whatever you say about it, you’re going to piss some people off and you’re going to lose some voters,” he said.
Yet abortion also is a way for politicians to talk directly to their base, Cassino added.
President Joe Biden was famously “not big on abortion” because of his Catholic faith, so Harris replacing him on the ballot invigorated Democrats desperate for a stronger abortion defender. In the same way, when Republicans like Kean and Bashaw diverge from their party’s position on abortion, Cassino said, “that’s a costly signal.”
That’s why many candidates have tried to play the middle on an issue where extremism abounds, he said.
“Both sides are trying to portray their own side as being the reasonable, moderate approach, and the other side as being crazy and captive of their most extreme partisans,” Cassino said. “Both sides are trying to claim the middle ground for themselves, because they think, correctly, that most Americans actually are in the middle ground.”
Broadening the message
Tina Zappile is director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University and an associate professor of political science. She predicted that Republican incumbents and abortion foes in supposedly “safe” seats like Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who’s running for a fourth term in the 2nd District, might see closer races than expected, given “the new energy around Kamala,” who has championed reproductive rights during her campaign.
“Abortion rights and women’s rights in general might get enough people out to vote to shift some of the races,” Zappile said.
That might be especially true in races where male and female candidates are pitted against each other, with female voters drawn to a woman candidate because of concerns about bodily autonomy, she added.
At the same time, messaging has broadened beyond relegating abortion to a “women’s issue,” with political ads and advocacy campaigns featuring husbands and fathers and looping in issues of affordability, family, and the future, Zappile added.
“It’s a good strategy to demonstrate that not just 51% of the population are impacted by abortion,” Zappile said.