The continued political march of abortion rights

But the ruling does serve as a reminder of how abortion rights — and specifically, how far Republicans and conservatives want to go in restricting them — could loom over 2024. Donald Trump is avoiding these issues scrupulously, including blowing his own deadline for offering a position on mifepristone. But Democrats are likely to raise them early and often in the campaign, and antiabortion true-believers are plotting how to get Trump in line.

The question has long been how much this issue would continue to help Democrats, as it clearly has in recent elections. And even as the Supreme Court was ruling this week came new data showing how the issue of abortion is still animating voters.

It may even be animating them more than before. Whether that accrues to President Biden’s benefit is another matter.

Gallup has for years asked voters whether they had an abortion-rights litmus test. Basically, the question is whether you demand a candidate share either your abortion-rights or antiabortion views to earn your vote.

And its latest survey shows the country continuing to trend toward demanding support for abortion rights.

Fully 23 percent of voters support abortion rights and demand candidates who do the same, compared to just 8 percent who say the same about opposing abortion rights.

That’s not only a reversal from where things stood for a quarter-century before Roe fell in 2022 — for that entire time, opposing abortion rights was more of a litmus test. It’s actually a bigger gap now than it was even in 2022 and 2023.

In both years, the percentage demanding support for abortion rights outpaced those demanding opposition by seven points; the gap has widened to 15 points.

We also got some eye-popping data on this front last week.

Fox News polling in Arizona and Florida showed remarkable levels of support for adding abortion rights to those states’ constitutions — 70 percent in Arizona and 69 percent in Florida. In both states, even Trump supporters and Republicans leaned in favor of the ballot measures.

Those surveys come on top of others showing the measures leading by wide margins, as well.

In fact, should these measures even approach such numbers in November, they would be bigger victories for abortion rights than in any other state. Abortion rights have won on states’ ballots every time since the fall of Roe, exceeding the Democratic presidential vote share by an average of about eight points and a maximum of 12 points (in Ohio last year).

These new Arizona and Florida numbers would outpace Biden’s 2020 showing by 20 points or more.

While much is to be determined, and these numbers could fall over time, it seems possible that these states’ harsh restrictions — Arizona briefly reinstated a near-total ban from 1864, while Florida has a six-week ban — have pushed voters more in favor of protecting abortion rights. That would be particularly ominous for efforts to restrict abortion.

At the same time, these data don’t necessarily suggest a political game changer for Biden.

Gallup notes, for instance, that those newly demanding support for abortion rights are almost exclusively Democratic-leaning voters. That suggests this could be more of a turnout motivator than something that will change votes.

The Arizona and Florida data also echo something remarkable that we’ve seen in other polling. While abortion rights are clear winners even in these competitive states, voters don’t really extend that advantage to the pro-abortion-rights candidate, Biden.

The abortion-rights ballot measure led by 43 points in Arizona (70-27), but Biden led by just six points when asked which candidate would do a better job on abortion (50-44). And while the measure led by 42 points in Florida (69-27), Biden led on the issue by just five points (50-45).

This despite Trump’s having appointed the justices who overturned Roe and taking credit for that decision.

One way to look at this is that abortion rights might not save Biden — and perhaps Trump’s arm’s length approach to the issue is paying dividends. Another is that this issue is ripe for messaging more effectively in the closing months of the campaign.

At the very least, there appears to be a growing segment of the population that could be receptive to that contrast.