More than 20 Ohio counties rejected Issue 1 on Tuesday and most of them were suburban and exurban counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
For years abortion has been thought of as a bitterly partisan issue, but the Ohio vote is the latest example of how the issue seems to defy the partisan 50/50, red/blue lens that defines most everything in American politics in 2023. In state after state, initiative after initiative, voters seem to be coming down on the side of abortion rights — and the data suggest one big driver of those outcomes might be suburban Republicans.
Now if only they’d stop voting for people against their own interests because of scare tactics, peer pressure, and single issue voting.
But that single issue was abortion for many of them. Damn, they are mindless.
Conservatives are highly motivated to harm others. It’s only when they accidentally harm themselves that they relent just long enough to make a correction. When they figure out how to allow abortions only for conservatives, these voters will resume their harmful positions on the topic.
I don’t think anyone’s seriously considered abortion a 50:50 issue in a long time. As far as I remember, it’s always been an extremist faction within the GOP, but a faction large and energized enough to dominate party politics. And it’s been ‘safe’ enough for mainstream GOP to play along with, because it was settled law protected by SCOTUS. Now that protection is gone, GOP politicians are going to have to decide whether courting those extremists in the primaries is worth the cost in the general.
I was discussing this earlier. I’m a pro-choice republican. I won’t vote republican until they change their stance on abortion. I’m rarely a single issue voter but this is one issue I won’t back down on. I personally don’t know any republicans who don’t want some compromise on the the issue.
There is a major disconnect between the voters and the politicians on this topic.
So when they said they’d outlaw abortions for the last 50 years, you still voted for them? 🤡
Did you see democrats voting to protect abortion? No. It was all posturing until roe was overturned.
Tell me how many years in the past 20 that democrats had enough votes in the house, and the Senate, and control of the white house. How much time did they actually have to pass laws with republican obstructionism? How would they pass laws that protect abortion when bad actors like Manchin and Sinema constantly interfere. What I did see was republicans systematically attack the privacy provisions from Roe up until their final success with the Dobbs decision. And I know you voted for them even though they made it abundantly clear what their intentions were. Constantly voting against your own interests under the guise of not being as cruel and heartless as the clowns you support.
Yes, and I do fault them for that, but only to an extent. Wedge issues are a valuable commodity, aren’t they? Republicans certainly kept banging on that pro-life drum (which supposedly no one really wanted and y’all were just yelling about to keep the rubes on board?) The flip side of that was that you all looked like extremists. (But Roe is dead and buried, so I guess you’re doing Nazis now. We all sort of hope that’s cosplay as well, but… look at Roe. Someone might start to suspect you’re serious.)
I guess there is such a thing as a slippery slope.
In any case, “you had 50 years to make a law about it” seems like a silly argument if the right in question is protected by the constitution. Every SC nominee in recent memory has testified to that specific question under oath.
And what sort of law are we talking about here? It’s far easier to restrict a right than it is to affirm it. It honestly makes no sense practically or politically. The only way to attack that right was through a challenge to Roe, so that was how things went down. They had to overturn Roe. Took half a century. I guess that’s something.
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I’m not sure what you think I was wrong about? Your article has nothing to do with congress. Congress has to enact a federal law. SCOTUS said the same thing. Everyone knew this was coming since roe was enacted. Yet nobody put in a federal law to perfect abortion.
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You don’t appear to understand the issue well.
Nobody moved a goal post. The only way to protect abortion is through congress
What overturning roe did is push the issue back to the states. Each state can make their own laws around abortion.
We need a federal law or amendment to fix the issue.
I’m a pro-choice republican.
Otherwise known as a Democrat. There’s no disconnect between voters and politicians. Republican voters want “no abortion” until they get it. Politicians are delivering that.
Republican voters do not really vote based on policies. They vote based on values. You may have said to yourself “This person seems like a decent choice”. " I like where they’re coming from." None of those are policies.
It affects them personally
Oh so some Republicans still quietly like freedom, got it.
Every poll specifically about about abortion routinely shows 60%+ in favor of allowing it. You need more than anti abortion to win an election.
They aren’t rights when they can be taken away. We have temporary privileges.
Because this was about more than just abortion. The November vote (specifically about abortion) could be an entirely different story.
Ya, that was my reading of this. It seems like “Issue 1” was a change in the Ohio Constitutional process. Yes, it was absolutely aimed at the potential abortion rights amendment; however, it makes much more sweeping changes and there may be people who were opposed to such changes on their own merit.
Precisely! In addition to abortion, Ohioans are working on recreational marijuana which also would’ve needed the insanely high 60% vote, had this issue passed.
It’s funny because the pro issue one people on my Facebook were all either completely focused on abortion or the fact that currently a 50.1% vote (or a single person) determined the outcome of something.
Both just completely disingenuous arguments… but arguments that are successful to a certain group of people.
Issue one wasn’t about abortion, no matter how much people want it to be. Convoluting it with the November abortion rights issue will only give false confidence for the November vote. It’s going to be a much tighter vote than what this was. Plenty of people across the political spectrum saw the long reaching implications passing issue one would have and voted it down for being a power grab.
As an Ohio resident it’s extremely frustrating that every national news outlet is trying to equate the issue 1 vote with abortion rights. Issue 1 would have fundamentally changed how citizens can interact with our constitution by making voter initiatives almost impossible to pass.
Yes, our farcical GOP government went on record saying this issue was in response to the November initiative about abortion rights, but this vote if passed would have made every other future voter initiative all but impossible to pass. It would have consolidated power into the hands of the minority. I’m so thankful people turned out to vote it down.
Issue 1 would have fundamentally changed how citizens can interact with our constitution by making voter initiatives almost impossible to pass.
Honestly - I think it was about both, but the November ballot initiative was absolutely the catalyst. Why else would lawmakers call an August election (something recently abolished), out of a seemingly new concern about ballot initiatives? A power grab was absolutely the goal, but there’s a reason they tried for it now.
Time for republicans to split into two parties.
That’s the only way I can see happening that would preserve our democracy. A part of GOP is clearly for authoritarianism and that’s not negotiable to them.
Yeah. The part that’s always screaming about freedom. The irony is maddening.
We should look at this data differently.
Democrats should figure out why they are uncompetitive in those Red counties even though there are enough people out there who agree with Dems on at least some of these issues. They should be leveraging that common issue to try to win those counties over.
I’m colorblind and that map gives me a sad 😭
