Swing-State Democrats Keen For Battle Over Abortion Rights

Michigan is a split state, with a Democratic executive branch and a GOP-led state legislature. However, the state's new legislative maps, drawn by an independent commission, give Democrats at least a fighting chance to flip the upper chamber while chipping away at GOP majorities in the lower chamber.

But it's not just a battleground like Michigan where Democrats are going all-in on abortion. One state to the south, Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan quickly took up abortion in his bid for the state's open Senate seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman.

The stakes for the race "have never been higher," Ryan said, following news of the draft opinion overturning Roe.

"Every single one of my GOP opponents supports extreme, restrictive anti-abortion laws. We cannot let them near the Senate," Ryan tweeted. "Our only choice to protect abortion is to flip this seat blue and expand our Democratic Senate majority.

Tuesday was also primary day in the Buckeye State, where Ryan prevailed on the Democratic side, while venture capitalist and Trump endorsee JD Vance emerged from a seven-person scrum on the Republican side.

But Ryan's rapid focus on abortion was particularly telling given that he had released an ad one day prior disavowing culture war issues in the race. Abortion is an issue on which he and other Democrats are eager to fight, while Senate Republicans in Washington spent Tuesday ducking for cover.

Swing-state Democrats' urgency on protecting abortion rights is a reflection of the fact that roughly 55% to 70% of Americans oppose the Supreme Court overturning Roe. But what really makes the Roe revelation explosive is the fact that only about 20% of the public (or even less) considered the landmark 1973 ruling’s downfall to be a possibility.

For decades, Democrats have found it challenging to really rally Americans around the cause of preserving abortion rights because most of them considered it settled law.

But what Mitch McConnell's extremist court has now made patently clear is the fact that nothing is settled law, nothing is sacrosanct, and nothing is off the table regardless of how old the precedent or its overwhelming public support.