Will abortion ruling boost Democrats? For voters, it’s complicated.

Sitting around a foldout table in a dimly lit union hall, Susan DeRose deftly folds sample ballots into thirds, building a sloping pile in front of Amber Stern and Ann Szlivko, who try to keep pace as they put the ballots into clear plastic baggies along with pamphlets for Democratic candidates. 

As volunteers with Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley for All, a local voter outreach group advocating progressive policies, the women say they’ve been jolted by this week’s leak of a Supreme Court draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade and American women’s legal right to an abortion. 

“I’ll be on the streets, I’ll march – I’ll do whatever I have to do,” says Ms. DeRose, as Ms. Stern and Ms. Szlivko nod in agreement.

“It’s going to give us a midterm boost,” adds volunteer coordinator Kathy Harrington. “Women are going to come out like crazy. Now reproductive rights are actually on the ballot.”

The highly unusual leak of the draft ruling on a Mississippi abortion law has increased concerns about the politicization of the highest tribunal in the land, and brought the nation’s bitter divide over abortion access to the forefront just as states have begun holding primaries for this fall’s midterm elections. Published Monday night by Politico, the draft was confirmed as authentic by the Supreme Court, though it is not finalized. It holds that the 1973 Roe decision marked an unconstitutional overreach of judicial power that sought to settle national differences but instead inflamed them.

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” writes Justice Samuel Alito in the draft majority opinion. 

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Susan DeRose, a retired high school math teacher, folds sample ballots following a meeting of the local Democratic group Lehigh Valley for All in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, May 3, 2022. She became active in local politics following Donald Trump's victory in 2016, but Ms. DeRose says that the leaked Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade has inspired her anew.

If the ruling holds, it could potentially give Democrats a boost heading into the midterm elections this fall, or at least scramble what had otherwise been shaping up as a sizable Republican wave. Already, Democratic activists like Ms. DeRose – a grandmother and retired teacher – are making plans to put the issue front and center, urging voters to elect candidates who will codify a woman’s right to abortion access into U.S. law. 

Yet the public’s views of abortion have also hardened along partisan lines in recent years, making the issue less likely to shift many voters’ decisions at the polls. And while it could energize more left-leaning voters to turn out, Democrats are still facing a slew of other challenges that may ultimately galvanize more voters on the Republican side – including inflation, crime, and record numbers of migrants trying to cross the border.

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted after the leaked ruling finds that just 28% of voters believe Roe should be overturned. But there was only a slight change in the percentage of voters for whom abortion will be the driving issue in the midterms. Some 35% now say it is more important to vote for someone who agrees with their stance on abortion access even if they disagree on other issues, up from 32% in December. 

Nevertheless, the leaked draft is reverberating across the country, from local activist meetings in Pennsylvania to the hazy warm air on Tybee Island, Georgia, where vacationers were grappling with its import.

The view from D.C.

Outside the Supreme Court, protesters’ chants echo across the vast lawn and plaza. 

“For women in this country to be equal, we need access to abortion!” shouts one protester into a temperamental mic, as one speaker after another – many of whom share their own experiences of having had an abortion – urges attendees to defend what they describe as a fundamental right in danger of being stripped away. 

“What are you going to do?” shouts another. “Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote,” chants the crowd. 

Meanwhile, a smaller group of counterprotesters keeps up chants like, “Babies never choose to die.” 

Republicans have strategized for decades to get more conservative justices onto the bench. They succeeded in landing three during President Donald Trump’s tenure – including Amy Coney Barrett, whose accelerated confirmation process weeks before the 2020 election struck many Democrats as hypocritical after Republicans refused to hold hearings for Obama nominee Merrick Garland in the spring of 2016. Now, they’re on the cusp of overturning Roe, as well as a related decision in 1992, Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

Yet in their initial statements, many Republican members of Congress have focused more on the leak than on the substance of the draft ruling, denouncing it as an unethical breach of trust that undermined the independence of the judiciary, and urging Chief Justice John Roberts to find and prosecute the leaker.

One lawmaker who did focus on the draft ruling, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah – who formerly clerked for Justice Alito – praised it for putting the issue of abortion back in the hands of legislators.  

“The very thing it will be allowing is for the democratic process to unfold – for people to make laws as they deem fit in their respective states,” Senator Lee said on the Senate floor, urging those who disagree with him to take it up with their state legislatures.

On the Democratic side, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already moved to bring a bill before the Senate that would codify a woman’s right to abortion access. But Democrats don’t have the votes to overcome a GOP filibuster. Nor do they have the votes to scrap the filibuster and push the bill forward with a simple 51-50 majority, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote. 

“If the court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose,” said President Joe Biden in a statement. “And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”

Statehouses as next battleground

In Pennsylvania, Republicans hold the majority in the state legislature by a margin of 12 seats. And whoever wins the gubernatorial race this fall will have the ability to sign or veto any abortion-related legislation.  

“This shows that every single race matters,” says Democratic state Sen. Steve Samuelson, after addressing the Lehigh Valley for All members. “Every race matters.”

At campaign stops across Philadelphia and its suburbs Wednesday, two gubernatorial candidates on opposite sides of the aisle acknowledge the newly added importance of the race. 

“I’ve stated very clearly, over and over again, that I am pro-life,” GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill McSwain tells the Monitor following a campaign stop at a gas station. “I will sign legislation to protect the most vulnerable among us: the unborn. I have said that I support exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, but those are the only exceptions.”

A few hours later and a few miles south, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who’s running unopposed for the Democratic nomination, speaks with equal determination. 

“There is a stark contrast in this race between me and my nine Republican opponents,” says Mr. Shapiro. “Each and every one of them would sign a bill restricting women’s freedoms here in Pennsylvania. I will veto those bills.” 

Down in Savannah, Georgia, the state whose close runoff elections in January 2021 tipped control of the U.S. Senate to the Democrats, independent voter Alyse Sklover says she’s “terrified” of Roe being overturned, in part because of what it would mean for the at-risk teenage girls she worked with at a Florida nonprofit.

“I think certain rights need to be protected federally,” says Ms. Sklover, who is concerned that women might seek illegal abortions if states like Georgia ban the practice.

Further inland, in Candler County, local salesperson Ashley Ridley says he believes abortion should be banned – but is torn as to whether there should be exceptions in certain cases, such as rape and incest. 

“I have a 4-year-old daughter, so that’s what I think about,” he says. Ultimately, “when we’re talking about abortion, we’re talking about ending lives.” A Republican, he says the issue could affect his vote in the GOP gubernatorial primary later this month. Current GOP Gov. Brian Kemp has not said whether he supports a total ban, though in 2019 he signed a law banning abortions after six weeks that will take effect if Roe is overturned. His primary opponent, former GOP Sen. David Perdue, has said he supports a total ban.

For many voters, the issue is complicated

While positions on abortion are often portrayed in black-and-white terms, for many voters the subject can bring out complicated, sometimes contradictory viewpoints. 

As retiree Tom Hubele and his wife dined this week in Savannah on their first major trip in 17 years, they could hear “my body, my choice” chants from a crowd of nearly 100 protesters marching through the city. A self-described rural conservative from the Midwest, Mr. Hubele believes abortion should remain legal. If Roe is overturned, he says, “that could very well influence who I vote for,” in order to ensure a legislative solution that would keep the practice available to women.

Life and death have been on his mind lately, says Mr. Hubele, who recently lost a good friend in a car accident. The abortion debate “is about life,” he says – but he views the issue as a matter of individual accountability. “We make choices in life, we make decisions, and those ... decisions have consequences. At the end, we have to answer for our decisions.” 

Not far away, Ara Carter is perusing surf shop wares as he strolls a beach walk on Tybee Island, Georgia. The middle-aged African American military veteran says he’s been pondering the issue since the news broke during his vacation. His perspective doesn’t fit neatly into either camp.

He says he twice impregnated a girlfriend when he was only 14, and his teenage girlfriend had an abortion both times. A few years later, another girlfriend had an abortion. The two later married and had a child.

Those experiences later steered him to oppose abortion – a view reinforced, he says, by his sister’s struggles to come to terms with an abortion she had as a young woman. Still, he’s not sure it should be outlawed. “I don’t think a bunch of gray-haired guys on a bench somewhere have any right to tell a woman what to do with her own body.” 

Either way, he says, the issue is not likely to change whom he votes for in the November elections.