Interest in abortion policy and speculation about its salience during the 2022 midterm elections peaked in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which returned the ability to regulate abortion to state legislatures.
While Republicans had long been expected to retake the House of Representatives and at a minimum gain ground in the Senate come November, some commentators predicted that Dobbs could change the political landscape and help Democrats defend their congressional majorities despite President Joe Biden’s unpopularity and a stagnant economy.
Sarah Longwell, a political strategist and publisher for The Bulwark suggested in September that “the national enviroment should favor Republicans, but their extremist positions on abortion is kryptonite for swing voters.”
The national enviroment should favor Republicans, but their extremist positions on abortion is kryptonite for swing voters. I talked to @RalstonReports about whether Nevada Republicans have a shot this November. New episode drops Saturday only for Bulwark+ subscribers pic.twitter.com/oRtaEoWQw6
— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) September 16, 2022
Despite the initial surge in voters expressing the issue’s relevance, however, there are signs that Dobbs is fading from voters’ memory, and abortion’s salience in the midterms with it.
As the New York Times‘s Nate Cohn points out on Twitter, the number of weekly Google searches in the U.S. pertaining to abortion has returned to the pre-Dobbs status quo ante, while the number of searches about the economy exceeds those about abortion and is on the rise.
There is pretty clearly a shift in the issue environment. Here, one example — interest in abortion is back down to pre-Dobbs levels on Google Searches, with the economy overtaking it. It’s quite a bit like the pre-Dobbs leak numbers pic.twitter.com/vcD3fzfuaV
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) September 28, 2022
Moreover, polling shows that abortion is not an especially important issue to voters. A Monmouth University survey released on Monday shows that voters place more importance on inflation, crime, elections and voting, jobs, immigration, and infrastructure than they do on abortion. A majority of voters did not not express approval of President Biden’s handling of any of those topics, including abortion.
It’s also possible that despite the changes wrought by Dobbs, voters have decided in the months since that Democrats are more out of the mainstream on abortion policy.
Congressional Republicans, led by Senator Lindsey Graham, have proposed a 15-week national limit on elective abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, while Democrats have touted legislation making abortion legal up until birth.
A Harvard University-Harris Poll survey released in July, after the Dobbs decision was reached, showed that just 10 percent of voters supported abortion through nine months of pregnancy, while 72 percent indicated support for restrictions after 15 weeks.