The Median Voter of Ohio vs. Pro-lifers
It's important to remember that the average voter in the US wants legal abortion
One of the basic insights of democracy is that the median voter has a lot of influence. They don’t always get their way, but they often do. This is why I’ve been confident that abortion will remain legal in the US. Why? For decades, the average American wants some form of legal abortion. For example, in 2023, Gallup reports that 51% of Americans want abortion legal in some situations while another 34% wants it legal in all cases.
So how do we get the Dobbs decision? Well, it’s pretty simple. The US is not a direct democracy. We don’t directly translate voter preferences into policy. Instead, American government has lots of voting, but also a lot of other forms of governance. We have two institutions that are designed to counter median voters: the Electoral College and the Supreme Court.
Once you get this point, you quickly understand how American abortion politics works. First, public opinion sets the baseline on abortion. And this has been the case. From Roe in 1972 to Dobbs in 2022, we’ve had abortion access in all 50 states. Second, activists need to counter act the median voter through “loopholes.” For example, pro-lifers spend a lot of time on judicial politics because judges are allowed to overturn voters. Also, the Electoral College matters a lot because it boosts the power of smaller and more conservative states.
In the 2010s, we saw almost no change in what voters believed, but we saw changes triggered by the Electoral College and the Supreme Court. We had a conservative president elected based on the College, even when he lost the popular vote. This “minority winner” president then proceeded to nominate two very conservative judges, who then overturned Roe. This is not a typical situation in US politics, it’s a rare event.
If you want a test of the theory that Dobbs and the new pro-life jurisprudence is a fluke, then you would expect that states produce pro-choice policies when voters are given the opportunity to weigh in. And that is exactly what happened in Kansas and Ohio. In 2022, Kansas brought back abortion rights with 59% of the vote. In Ohio, voters did the same with 59% of the vote. Voters in both states rejected proposed amendments that either banned abortion or made abortion very hard.
Both of these state votes say something important. The Kansas vote indicates that citizens in even conservative states want abortion rights and Ohio is more middle-in-the-road. Except for places with extremely high concentrations of very conservative religious voters, like Utah, a majority of voters in most places want some abortion access.
Where does that leave us today? First, in terms of practical politics, abortion rights are safe in places with majorities of liberal voters like California and even places with moderate voters, like Ohio. Abortion rights are also safe in places where the issue goes to a popular vote, except in a few regions like the Mountain states. Second, abortion rights will be limited in places where abortion politics is fought out in courts and legislatures.
Bottom line: If you thought the median voter was dead, you are sorely mistaken.
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