The 2024 presidential election has been set for several weeks now. Joe Biden and Donald Trump will engage in a rematch that seemingly no one wants, even though they have made no effort to find and support a viable alternative. Both candidates and their supporters have spent these past few weeks tracking polls and trying to figure out their opponent’s vulnerabilities. While polls have slightly trended in Joe Biden’s favor as of late, it is still an incredibly close race.
The economy is predicted to be the deciding factor in November. Pundits have argued endlessly about the current recovery and whether or not it will boost Biden out of his current polling doldrums. But there is a chance that abortion policy will become the more decisive factor this year. Abortion rights are the most powerful tool that the Democratic Party has. If Biden wins handily, his victory has the potential to shift the politics of abortion for the next decade at least.
The abortion factor
Observers have been unclear about the political impact of abortion since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. The conventional wisdom is that Biden’s overperformance that year was tied to backlash over the Court’s ruling. But even the most optimistic pundits are not certain that this experience will be repeated in 2024. They point to polling showing that abortion as an issue helps the generic Democrat and not Biden himself. Rachel M. Cohen at Vox argues that the presidential election will be decided by so-called “low propensity” voters: “for these voters in particular, abortion rights are simply not among the top issues they say they care about.” In addition, many strong supporters of abortion rights are unhappy with Biden for various reasons, including his tepid personal support for abortion as a practicing Catholic.
These pessimists miss the obvious conflation many voters will have between Joe Biden and his party. In an era of declining ticket splitting, nearly every voter who will vote for one Democrat will vote for the leader of that Democrat’s party. They will associate Biden with abortion rights even if he does not go as far as many activists would hope. If abortion is on their minds at all, they will likely become Biden voters.
The battle lines
Furthermore, abortion is one of a handful of issues where both parties take a clear stance that can be discerned by the public. In their rhetoric, both Democrats and Republicans oppose inflation, support workers, and want a “sensible” border policy. It is easy for voters to hope that Republicans will enact a more effective approach to the economy or foreign policy. But on abortion, the battle lines have been in place to some degree for fifty years. Democrats support choice on the abortion issue (the more popular position) and Republicans oppose abortion. No last-minute ad campaign will shift these fundamental positions.
Democrats should not make abortion the only issue they run on. It is still not at the top of voters’ concerns and may not be enough on its own to put Biden in the White House. But the issue is a uniquely powerful one that has already created one electoral upset. The party should do what it takes to define the issue clearly and keep it in the public eye. If so, they have a good chance of shocking the world again this November.
