President Biden’s remarks today — vowing that the first bill he will send a Democratic Congress, should there be one next year, will “codify Roe” — suggest that not all Democrats share James Carville’s concern that the party is overemphasizing abortion in the midterm campaigns.
More and more evidence suggests that the issue is fading as a voter concern: The percentage of respondents who tell Gallup it’s the most important issue has halved over two months.
But the problem for Democrats isn’t just that the issue may not be as potent as they had hoped. It’s that, if their abortion campaign fizzles, both parties will know it. Republicans will be less fearful about proposing and defending protections for unborn life, and Democrats will know that fighting it has a limited reward. If it doesn’t work for them in the immediate aftermath of Roe’s overturning, they’ll wonder, when will it?