The Daily Agenda: Abortion shifted political winds
The Daily Agenda: Abortion shifted political winds
The Dobbs ruling could slow a Republican wave ... Never get towed ... And it's always the media's fault.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is helping Democrats cut into an anticipated Republican year, potentially giving Dems a way to pick off young, female and independent voters.
Abortion didn’t typically rank in the top topics that animated voters before the court’s ruling. But abortion rights is surging, Republican pollster Paul Bentz of HighGround found. Abortion has become a top-five issue for voters in recent weeks, and voters rate it among the top three issues they want candidates to weigh in on, he found.
“The Dobbs decision has basically had the effect of muting what should be a very good Republican year, increasing enthusiasm among certain demographics that they couldn't afford to lose,” Bentz said.
In down-ballot races, Bentz doesn’t think abortion will lead to major swings for Democrats. The Legislature likely stays red, he said. But in statewide races, it’s made the elections more competitive. And that’s why we’re all seeing more TV ads about candidates’ stances on abortion.
To win statewide, candidates typically need support from independent or cross-party voters because of the state’s voter makeup. And those independents favor abortion access more than the Republican base.
Republican candidates have seen similar polling that shows abortion as a key issue where they’re losing voters. You can tell by their actions: Blake Masters, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, scrubbed his website and softened his statements on the topic. Campaign ads for Republicans in some races, including Masters’, now feature their wives, an appeal to female voters.
When voters are asked directly about abortion, they generally favor some level of access to it. Take the recent vote in Kansas, where voters turned out in droves to strongly rejected a ballot question that would have removed access to abortion from the state constitution.
Arizona won’t have a ballot measure about abortion access this year. An effort to quickly gather signatures didn’t pan out. Advocates for abortion access are instead planning an initiative for the 2024 presidential election, and should have plenty of time and money to qualify for the ballot by then.
It’s less clear how abortion factors into candidates’ races, where multiple factors, sometimes competing, weigh into a voter’s decision. Recent polls have shown Democrats up in competitive races, but those polls could be overestimating Democrats in similar patterns to 2020, the New York Times’ Nate Cohn reports.
For a generation, politicians’ most draconian threats to reproductive rights were largely theoretical — the courts were always there to strike them down. But the Dobbs decision put abortion in the hands of state politicians, and that may give voters a reason to support Democrats this year.
Get to know your future leaders: The Republic’s Ray Stern explores the beliefs and statements of GOP legislative candidates who have espoused extremist views, going beyond just 2020 election fraud claims. Republican candidates for the Arizona Legislature this year “include Oath Keepers and people who believe in, or have dabbled in, conspiracies like QAnon and a century-old imagined plot that a Jewish banking family manipulates geopolitics,” he wrote. Comparatively, he notes, Democrats running for the Legislature sometimes hold farther-left views on topics like abortion or policing, but aren’t associated with any extremist groups, nor have they “publicly spread false, debunked allegations about the election system.”
Election denialism roundup: For election officials, combating misinformation has become a major part of the job, including in Arizona, where they have to beat back bad information while putting out the correct stuff, the Associated Press reports. And candidates running for election-related roles, like Democratic candidate for secretary of state Adrian Fontes, constantly have to respond to their opponents' claims about the 2020 election, States Newsroom reports. Meanwhile, the Arizona Supreme Court this week rejected the latest effort to overturn the 2020 election results via lawsuit, Capitol reporter Howie Fischer writes. And the New York Times runs down a litany of fraud claims Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem has made and details how he could change elections if he wins.
Debate-gate: Not content to let the debate storyline die, GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake told the Clean Elections Commission that it should keep the invitation open to Democrat Katie Hobbs, saying Lake will still debate Hobbs even if she only decides to participate “in the 11th hour.” Separately, Hank was on KJZZ yesterday to talk about the gov debate issue.
Rest in peace: Longtime Arizona Mine Inspector Joe Hart, who quietly left the office last year, has died. He served in the role from 2007 to 2021. We’ll leave you with his sendoff from his resignation letter:
“For this cowboy, it was one heckuva ride!”
Never tweet: Bruce Franks Jr., a former Missouri legislator who’s now the campaign manager for Democratic candidate for Maricopa County Attorney Julie Gunnigle, tweeted offensive comments about LGBTQ communities, women and people with disabilities, largely more than a decade ago, Axios’ Jessica Boehm reports. Separately, Fox News reports he tweeted anti-cop sentiments, including calls to defund and abolish the police, and that campaign spokeswoman Dawn Penich-Thacker once called police “a menace.”
New job announcements: The City of Phoenix will soon have its first public health adviser, after the city hired Nicole Dupuis-Witt to officially lead its public health efforts after hiring her on as a consultant during the pandemic. She’ll start the new post in October, the city announced. Separately, Phoenix’s new police chief, Michael Sullivan, started yesterday.
Driver beware: A Tucson towing company, A & B Towing, faces complaints from people whose cars got towed from their own apartment buildings and other places without “no parking” signage. Police say the company is preying on people who don’t know the law and that they’ve received more than 200 calls to the company’s impound lot in the last few years, the Arizona Daily Star’s Carol Ann Alaimo reports. The company’s operator was charged with a misdemeanor over one clash with a person whose vehicle was towed.
New law: A law that takes effect on Sept. 24 will allow the victims of dangerous crimes to ask courts for a lifetime injunction against their abuser, similar to a lifetime restraining order, 12News’ Joe Dana reports. The law, dubbed “Kayleigh’s Law,” was first passed in Arizona, but Kayleigh Kozak wants other states to pass similar laws.
Great, more ads: A conservative super PAC called the Sentinel Action Fund, will throw money into the U.S. Senate race to support GOP candidate Blake Masters, Politico reports. The group will spend $5 million on both TV ads and voter outreach. And the chairs of the county Republican parties all wrote to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to ask for his help for Masters’ race.
A Fitbit for cows: That alone should reel you in to this story from the Republic’s Melinda Walling.
Our friends at Shortwave Ink designed t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags and more with our Agenda logo. It’s all available on demand in our online store, which will then ship out the stuff to you.
When in doubt, blame the media.
GOP candidate for attorney general Abraham Hamadeh repeatedly railed against the media on KTAR’s “The Gaydos and Chad Show” last week instead of answering questions about his experience in the courtroom, whether he’s under investigation by the military and a 1994 indictment against his father that was dropped.
The whole testy interview is worth a listen.
Re: Dems holding "far left" positions like abortion - I think voter behavior and opinions being widely reported demonstrate that abortion is not a far left position. The slight majority that Republicans hold in our legislature could be at least changed to a tie, if not switched to Democrat, with favorable results in the few competitive races based on the abortion issue and support for public education funding.
In today's Agenda, you note, re Ray Stern's summary of extremism in our politics (after a paragraph about Qanon etc on the right) "Comparatively, he notes, Democrats running for the Legislature sometimes hold far-left views on topics like abortion or policing."
While it's true that candidates in both parties can have views across the spectrum of possibilities, I hope it's clear to people that the two sides are not mirror images. In his article, Stern notes (while also reporting on Democrats holding views he sees as extreme):
"Republican legislative candidates include Oath Keepers and people who believe in, or have dabbled in, conspiracies like QAnon and a century-old imagined plot that a Jewish banking family manipulates geopolitics.
By contrast, no Democratic candidates for the Legislature appear to have a history in Antifa or other left-wing extremist organizations, and Democrats have not publicly spread false, debunked allegations about the election system."
Let's put it another way: it is one thing to have a views about how public safety money should be spent, or other public issues, that significantly differ from the median perspective in the public, or to use imprudent messaging. It is quite another to deny reality, which has become common for many of the Republican candidates this year.