How the 2022 midterms strategy could change after the Kansas abortion vote
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Republican state lawmakers in Indiana approved a near-total ban on abortion Friday night. A more unexpected result came earlier last week when voters in Kansas overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative that would have opened the door to significant abortion restrictions in the state. It was the first political test of voters' appetite for state abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. The outcome has political strategists in both parties eyeing the upcoming midterm elections in new ways, as NPR's Barbara Sprunt reports.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: Kansas voters soundly rejecting a path that could curb abortion rights in the state seemed to surprise everyone.
CHUCK ROCHA: Well, last night was a slap in the face to me personally as a consultant who's done this for 32 years.
SPRUNT: That's Chuck Rocha, a senior Democratic operative. We spoke the day after the vote. He said he had thought abortion rights might have some effect in elections but not a major one. But after seeing the staggering number of voters who turned out in a state that former President Trump won by 15 points in 2020, he's changed his mind.
ROCHA: It proved that you could probably peel off some of these moderate Republican women who take this very personal, as well.
SPRUNT: John Feehery, a Republican strategist, says Republican candidates need to recalibrate.
JOHN FEEHERY: I think Republicans have to view this as a wake-up call.
SPRUNT: He says he still thinks voters will put the economy and inflation concerns first in the midterm elections. But he thinks Republican candidates are being characterized by some of the most extreme positions on abortion.
FEEHERY: The problem is that when you have people wanting to be the most conservative candidate in a primary, that they'll take positions that are not that popular with most voters. Most voters are in the middle. They're not on either extreme.
SPRUNT: He's also worried that some candidates aren't being clear that their views on limiting abortion don't extend to rolling back rights to contraception and same-sex marriage, fears that could further fire up voters on the left and in the middle. In Kansas on Tuesday, over 900,000 people cast a ballot, a level of participation that blows past primary turnouts out of the water.
TOM BONIER: I've never seen anything to that extent in terms of that sort of intensity.
SPRUNT: That's Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm. He looked at voter registration numbers in Kansas before and after June 24, when the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.
BONIER: Seventy percent of the new voter registrants were women. If you look at the period two years before in the previous election cycle, new voter registrants were almost exactly evenly split between men and women.
SPRUNT: Another big change - the number of young people who registered to vote. Over half were under the age of 25. Youth turnout drove much of the blue wave in 2018.
BONIER: Is what we saw in Kansas the first indicator of something similar happening in 2022? And will we see a huge increase in women participating in this election that could produce a surprising result?
SPRUNT: There's a record number of abortion measures on state ballots this year, which could help drive turnout for Democrats. What can Republicans do? Mallory Carroll, vice president of communications for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, says GOP candidates need to be upfront about their stances on abortion, including the circumstances in which they think it should be allowed.
MALLORY CARROLL: Candidates can and should be very explicit about the exceptions that they support and instances when they support legislation that allows for abortions.
SPRUNT: She also says Republicans can't shy away from talking about abortion and only focus on inflation, gas prices and crime.
CARROLL: There's no doubt those are very salient issues that voters care about. But if pro-life Republicans fail to define themselves and what their policy positions are, then pro-abortion Democrats will do that for them.
SPRUNT: And Election Day is just three months from tomorrow.
Barbara Sprunt, NPR News, Washington.
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