Democrats were able to temper the GOP’s red wave hopes, and without a doubt—there will be thought pieces about how it was abortion that saved liberals in 2022. Once again, it’s a gross misreading of the polls. It started over the summer when Kansas voters defeated a pro-life amendment to their state constitution. It wasn’t because the state had become pro-choice after the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade. It was that the state already had stringent restrictions on the controversial procedure.
To their credit, Vox was one of the few left-leaning outlets that noted that the Jayhawk State already bans abortion at 22 weeks, prohibits state and federal funding, and has parental consent laws. It captures where this issue will probably land with most voters and state legislatures—abortion will remain legal but heavily regulated. To the Left, the restrictions listed above are viewed as a ban on the procedure outright—they want abortion on demand, without exceptions, and federally funded.
If you enlarge the map, every Republican governor who supports restrictions on abortion, with some affixing their signature to such laws before Election Day, won their re-election bids (via The American Conservative):
If anything was less impressive on election night than the “red wave,” it was the abortion wave. Blue states protected abortion rights as expected, but public officials who have supported or enforced limits on abortion in nearly 20 red states were re-elected.
Americans have learned since June that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t make abortion illegal in the Dobbs decision. Instead, after decades of jurisprudence that effectively taught Americans to embrace abortion, the Court made abortion an issue for voters, for Congress, and for states.
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A reported $500 million have been spent attacking Republicans who supported pro-life law and policy. Abortion was an election issue in virtually every state’s elections because Democrats made it an issue with their ads.
The first national election after the Court overruled Roe was destined to be raucous, but the issue has fizzled in many states for abortion activists.
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Thirteen states have aimed to enforce early gestational limits on abortion. In Alabama, Governor Ivey won with 67 percent. In Arkansas, Sara Huckabee Sanders won with 63 percent. In Idaho, Republican Brad Little was reelected with 60 percent. In Oklahoma, Republican Governor Stitt was reelected with 55 percent of the vote. In South Dakota, Governor Noem was reelected with 62 percent. And in Texas, which got the most media attention for a year leading up to the Dobbs decision, Governor Abbott was reelected with nearly 55 percent.
In four additional states with early gestational prohibitions, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was reelected with 53 percent, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds won with 58 percent, Ohio Gov. Mike Dewine was re-elected with 62 percent, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was re-elected with 65 percent. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who signed an early gestational limit in August, was re-elected with 58 percent of the vote.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who supported and signed a “pain capable” prohibition on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, was reelected with nearly 60 percent.
We’re bound to have a rehashing of the abortion issue, and the liberal media and Democrats will gloss over the inconvenient aspects of this debate—but the fact remains: pro-life governors survived and won by healthy margins.
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