ICYMI: Abortion vote in Kansas sparks new hope for Dems in midterms [AP]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

AP: Abortion vote in Kansas sparks new hope for Dems in midterms

By Steve Peoples

August 4, 2022

Key Points: 

• The Kansas vote… suggests that threats to abortion rights may energize Democrats in a way few political leaders can.
  
  
• In Georgia, GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker, for example, worried some Washington Republicans by quickly declaring his opposition to abortion rights even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother. Such a position, thought to be extreme in past years, is somewhat common among Republican candidates in 2022.
  
  
• The Senate Democrats campaign arm recently established a website, GOPOnAbortion.com, to highlight Republican candidates’ outspoken opposition to abortion rights. 
  

• Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who leads the group dedicated to protecting the Senate’s Democratic majority, predicted that abortion would likely matter most as a political issue in Senate races in Nevada, New Hampshire and Arizona — all states in which polling suggests strong support for abortion rights. Suburban women and younger voters are most likely to be motivated by the issue.

• “There’s a great deal of anger,” Peters said of the backlash against the Roe reversal. “There’s an energy I haven’t seen before.”
  
  
• In Wisconsin, the leading Democratic Senate candidate, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, noted that the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe was the biggest fundraising day of his entire campaign.

• “People are motivated and energetic in ways that I’ve never seen before,” he said in an interview. “I can only assume that that intensity will increase all the way to November.”
  

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