Comment: Democrats need better plan to defend abortion access

Fortunately for them, Georgia’s Stacy Abrams has shown the basics of effective outreach to voters.

By Julianna Goldman / Bloomberg Opinion

Democrats are holding protests, raising money and turning sound bites into viral clips on social media in response to the Supreme Court’s seemingly imminent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. They have their rallying cry. But whether the energy will last — and turn around a widely expected congressional shellacking six months from now — depends on whether Democrats can go beyond protests and move toward the kind of electoral organizing that has made pro-life groups so successful.

The prospect of the court gutting Roe “could have an effect right away by getting educated Democrats off their shneids,” says Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard. There’s a difference, however, between mobilizing voters and organizing them, and Skocpol and her coauthors argue in a forthcoming research paper that Democrats need to focus more on the latter than the former.

There are specific groups of voters that are harder to reach and will be the ones most affected by abortion bans or more restrictive policies likely to be adopted in many states, Skocpol says: less educated, more rural than suburban, and the occasional or never-before voters. Of the 10 races most likely to determine control of the Senate, more than half are in states with laws that would ban abortion if and when Roe is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research organization.

The worry with activists on the left, says Skocpol, “is that they’ll get out there and start yelling at Joe Manchin to get rid of the filibuster. He’s not going to do that. Democrats have a chance to get beyond the filibuster if they elect two or three more senators,” she told me.

In her paper, which she wrote with two student researchers, Skocpol compares the approaches of two of the most prominent activists in the Democratic Party over the last 15 years: the Rev. William Barber II in North Carolina and Stacey Abrams in Georgia.

“What evidence increasingly suggests is that when you’re dealing with people who don’t automatically vote, they respond to a neighbor saying something to them or to something they hear over and over again,” Skocpol told me. “And the right in this country has had a big advantage for quite a lot of time in that their networks reach into churches and gun clubs and the kinds of things that have taken the place of unions.”

The big pro-choice organizations, she says, don’t have those kinds of networks.

To successfully organize, reproductive-rights organizations need to adopt the playbook of Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House who narrowly lost the governor’s race there in 2018. She laid the groundwork for Democratic wins in Georgia’s 2020 Senate runoff with an “electorally focused approach to empowering Black and lower-income people,” Skocpol says. She also “prioritized statewide outreach,” including to smaller rural counties where there were a lot of Black non-voters.

By contrast, Skocpol’s paper notes, Barber’s efforts in North Carolina were less successful. In 2014, incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan lost to Republican Thom Tillis.

“Barber’s movement has primarily used marches, protests and public events to attract media attention in order to move public opinion and thereby press politicians and leaders of all stripes to aid the poor and minorities,” the paper says. “Movement effects in elections are likely to be bigger and more enduring if organizational capacities are persistently deployed on the ground. Bursts of media-worthy protests are unlikely to suffice.”

Both Georgia (where Abrams is a candidate for governor and which is likely to have a very close Senate race) and Ohio have enacted laws prohibiting abortion after six weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute. They were blocked by federal courts, but state lawmakers could try to revive them. Arizona and Wisconsin enacted pre-Roe bans that were never repealed. Guttmacher also lists Florida as a state likely to ban abortions. North Carolina has a pre-Roe abortion ban in place, but it’s unclear how quickly it could become law.

About 60 percent of Americans support the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision. But about half of the public doesn’t know what the law is in their state, says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. That represents an opportunity for Democrats, she says; especially in states with competitive Senate races.

Lake also offers a litany of demographic statistics: 28 percent of projected voters are parents of children under 18. Some 53 percent will be women; “and 100 percent of women have at some point been of reproductive age,” she says. Abortion is a health-care issue that affects all women, she says, “and it’s an issue they thought was none of your business and already settled.”

To quote Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion: “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”

Julianna Goldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist who was formerly a Washington-based reporter for CBS News and White House correspondent for Bloomberg News.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

toon
Editorial cartoons for Tuesday, Feb. 18

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 4, 2019, file photo, a man using an electronic cigarette exhales in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. On Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, the American Medical Association said it is calling for an immediate ban on all electronic cigarette and vaping devices. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)
Editorial: Shut down flavored tobacco’s gateway to youths

Legislation in Olympia would bar the use of flavors and menthol in vape products and cigarettes.

Herald report of Everett protest inaccurate, biased

I was at the rally and protest in Everett last on Feb.… Continue reading

Media shouldn’t use ‘she’ for trans people

About 79 percent of Americans oppose those observed male at birth from… Continue reading

USAID freeze halts vital aid work

I am outraged the Trump administration is making the U.S. weaker in… Continue reading

Goldberg: Trump declares war on higher ed, not just woke parts

The move, aided by Elon Musk, to gut NIH funding, is part of a larger and debilitating attack on academia.

Comment: Trump’s Kennedy Center will narrow exposure to art

Trump’s move to takeover the Kennedy Center is not about the arts but about celebrating his tastes.

Rivian, based in Irvine, Calif., has introduced its new R2 models, smaller and more affordable SUVs. (Rivian)
Editorial: Open electric vehicle market to direct sales

Legislation would allow EV makers to sell directly to customers, making lease or purchase easier.

People walk adjacent to the border with Canada at the Peace Arch in Peace Arch Historical State Park, where cars behind wait to enter Canada at the border crossing Monday, Aug. 9, 2021, in Blaine, Wash. Canada lifted its prohibition on Americans crossing the border to shop, vacation or visit, but America kept similar restrictions in place, part of a bumpy return to normalcy from coronavirus travel bans. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Editorial: U.S. and Canada better neighbors than housemates

President Trump may be serious about annexing Canada, but it’s a deal fraught with complexities for all.

CNA Nina Prigodich, right, goes through restorative exercises with long term care patient Betty Long, 86, at Nightingale's View Ridge Care Center on Friday, Feb. 10, 2023 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: Boost state Medicaid funding for long-term care

With more in need of skilled nursing and assisted-living services, funding must keep up to retain staff.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Monday, Feb. 17

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Comment: No one saw Musk’s DOGE rampage coming or its threat

With no formal grant of authority, Musk is making cuts without fully understanding the consequences.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.