Will Abortion Rulings Help Biden in November?

Abortion is set to be a defining issue in the 2024 presidential election as stringent laws in both Florida and Arizona have been met with swift backlash this month. President Joe Biden’s administration is hoping the news will hurt former President Donald Trump, who appointed three of the justices that overturned Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion. Trump is currently leading Biden in the polls by 0.2 percentage points, according to the RCP Average. 

In Florida, the state Supreme Court greenlighted a six-week ban on abortion, with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. In Arizona, the state Supreme Court revived an 1864 law that makes abortion punishable by two to five years in prison, except when the mother’s life is in danger.

Trump on Wednesday said the Arizona decision goes too far. “That’ll be straightened out,” he told reporters as he campaigned in Georgia. “And I’m sure that the governor and everybody else are going bring it back into reason, and that will be taken care of, I think, very quickly.”

Trump has declined to endorse a national ban on abortion, saying instead that the decision should be left up to the states. Both Florida and Arizona will have measures on the ballot in November regarding abortion.

Abortion access – which is broadly supported among the American public – has helped Democrats overperform in local and state elections since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022. Abortion was a key issue in the 2022 midterm elections and boosted Democrats to victory across the country.

Arizona was one of these such cases. A Wall Street Journal poll shows that nine out of 10 Democrats, two-thirds of independents, and one-third of Republicans support access to the procedure. Further, of seven swing states, Arizona voters were most likely to say that they wouldn’t support a candidate they disagreed with on abortion.

Biden won Arizona in 2020 by the narrowest margin in the country – 10,000 votes. This year Biden is lagging behind Trump in most battleground polls, including one which shows voters prefer Trump on matters such as the economy and immigration. Across the seven states – Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona – abortion is the only issue where Biden had a clear advantage over Trump. 

Biden must hope that the abortion rulings will push disaffected Democrats to turn out to the polls.