New Reporting Highlights “Abortion Rights Hitting Midterm Stage”

Following the Supreme Court decision that allowed the Texas law restricting access to abortion to stand, new reporting from Axios and Bloomberg highlights the central role that Republicans’ attacks on women’s reproductive health care and the GOP’s efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade will play in Senate races in 2022. 

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Axios: Democrats putting Texas on the ballot in New Hampshire and Nevada
By Sarah Mucha
September 27, 2021

• Democrats are trying to attack Republican political candidates over abortion rights far from Texas.

• The strategy highlights the national resonance of the new Texas law banning abortions past six weeks. The Democratic Party sees an opening in next year’s midterm elections to capitalize on voters’ opposition to it.

• The Democrats’ ad campaigns have the potential to drive up turnout by women.

• Democrats are already releasing ads hitting Republicans for their record on choice in the hope of making an early impression on voters.

• The New Hampshire Democratic Party has a digital ad, released Monday, that attempts to blame the state’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, for the New Hampshire Executive Council’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood.

• In Nevada, Democrats are hitting Adam Laxalt, a Republican Senate primary candidate, by tying him to Dean Heller, who’s running for governor, through their abortion rights comments.

• The Nevada chapter of NARAL, a pro-choice non-profit, released an op-ed opposing Laxalt for his record on abortion, and several abortion rights groups came together to hold a rally in Reno against the candidate this month.

• “I think that protecting women’s reproductive rights is fundamental to the Granite State,” Ray Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, told Axios.

• Andy Orellana, a spokesperson for Nevada Democratic Victory, the coordinated campaign for Democrats in 2022, said, “With Nevada Republicans calling for extreme abortion bans like the one in Texas, Laxalt’s anti-choice record has only become more alienating to voters.”

Bloomberg: Abortion Rights Hitting Midterm Stage as Democrats Push on Issue
By Ken Doyle
September 28, 2021

• Democrats say abortion could be a decisive issue in Senate races in New Hampshire, Nevada, and beyond that will decide which party controls the chamber.

• The controversy is already being highlighted by a progressive group’s seven-figure ad buy in the Granite State, where Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) is hammering her possible opponent, Gov. Chris Sununu (R), for taking action to curb abortion rights.

• “New Hampshire has seen unprecedented threats to reproductive health care over the past few months, with the governor signing a budget that includes an abortion ban and mandatory ultrasounds and the Executive Council defunding Planned Parenthood,” Hassan said in an email in which she pledged to fight for abortion rights.

• Democrats are pushing a national message on abortion, according to Jazmin Vargas, spokeswoman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “The freedom for women to make our own health care decisions is on the ballot in 2022 and in key Senate battleground states,” Vargas said in an email. “We must defend a Democratic Senate majority with the power to confirm or reject Supreme Court justices.”

• The abortion issue may be especially potent in states, like New Hampshire and Nevada, where female Democratic senators may face male Republican challengers.

• In Nevada, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is likely to face Republican Adam Laxalt, the son and grandson of former senators who lost a 2018 bid for governor.

• The election will provide a sharp contrast on the abortion issue, as Laxalt has taken strongly anti-abortion positions. As Nevada attorney general until 2019, Laxalt supported legal challenges by other states to restrict abortion access. Laxalt suggested when he ran for governor he might try to roll back a 1990 Nevada referendum protecting abortion rights, which passed with support of 63% of voters.

• “Nevadans overwhelmingly believe that a woman should be able to make her own health care decisions, and I have always worked to protect that fundamental freedom,” Cortez Masto said in an email.

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