SCOTUS Decision Overturning Roe “Immediately Reverberated In U.S. Senate Races” As Senate Democrats Draw Clear Contrast With GOP Candidates

Sen. Tina Smith to PEOPLE: “If your elected representatives don’t do what you think that they should do, then you [have] to vote them out.”

Following the Supreme Court’s draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade, “Democrats in competitive races quickly argued that they need more Senate seats to protect abortion access,” reinforcing the stakes of the 2022 election as “some of states that have the closest Senate races also are jurisdictions that would see dramatic changes in abortion policy if Roe is set aside.”

See for yourself:

The 19th News: How the Supreme Court leak immediately reverberated in U.S. Senate races

• Democrats in competitive races quickly argued that they need more Senate seats to protect abortion access, while the Republican response was more muted — and sometimes didn’t reflect the reality of proposed legislation.

• It didn’t take long Tuesday night for Rep. Val Demings, the Democratic front-runner in Florida’s Senate race, to bring up abortion.

• “Let this homegirl, in her hometown, make this clear: When I decided to start my family I didn’t ask the governor’s permission, I didn’t ask my Congress for permission, I sure didn’t ask my senator’s permission, and they need to get out of our business and leave these personal decisions, these intimate decisions, to women,” Demings said to some of the loudest applause of the night.

• Demings repeatedly called out her likely November opponent, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, as a lawmaker poised to restrict abortion access for Floridians.

• Some Republicans, like Rubio, are already working on bills that would further restrict abortion access.

• In Nevada… Cortez Masto’s likely opponent, former state attorney general Adam Laxalt, said this week that overturning Roe would be a “historic victory.”

• “Make no mistake, this is about controlling women — politicians, not doctors, will decide whether a woman’s life is in danger during her pregnancy,” Cortez Masto said.

• New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan… said that in her competitive race, “the Republican men — and yes, they are all men — running against me are all pushing an extreme, anti-choice agenda. One of them was the architect of New Hampshire’s first abortion ban in modern history. Another spent years lobbying to defund Planned Parenthood.”

• Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, competing in toss-up race in Arizona, said this week that he would “do everything I can in the Senate to codify Roe and protect abortion access for all Arizonans.”

• The NRSC’s talking points… don’t reflect reality.

• Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) spokesperson Nora Keefe told The 19th that “no memo can change the fact that Republicans are grossly out of step with the voters that will decide the 2022 election.”

People: Sen. Tina Smith Says Overturning Roe Is ‘So Out of Step with Where Americans Are’ on Abortion Rights

• “Access to abortion is what most people in this country want,” Smith, the junior senator from Minnesota, says.

• “It’s hard to say it was surprising, but it just felt like such an insult … We have watched this many decade-long campaign, fueled by the right wing of the Republican party to overturn Roe v. Wade and to put anti-choice justices on the Supreme Court. So it’s not surprising that this is the result of that campaign.”

• Smith, who volunteered at Planned Parenthood and was later the vice president of the organization’s health care centers in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, said that the women she would see at the clinics were clearheaded about their decision.

• “I saw them make those decisions with so much clarity and capacity to make good decisions,” she says. “For them, this doesn’t feel like a political issue. This feels like a personal issue about what they need to do to take care of themselves and their family.”

• “That’s why the position of the Republican party and Republican candidates is just so out of step with where Americans are on this.”

• “Your power, your voice, can be expressed by talking about the issue and working for candidates that you trust,” she says. “Legislators should be accountable to the people they serve by passing laws that the people want. If your elected representatives don’t do what you think that they should do, then you [have] to vote them out.”

Bloomberg News: Democrats Latch Onto Roe Rollback in Battle for Senate

• Some of states that have the closest Senate races also are jurisdictions that would see dramatic changes in abortion policy if Roe is set aside.

• Kelly’s home state of Arizona has a pre-Roe abortion ban, and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, this year signed a law that hasn’t yet taken effect that would outlaw abortions in the state after 15 weeks.

• “I don’t think women are going to forget that they lost what they thought is a fundamental right to control their own health care,” Kelly said.

• In Georgia, where Warnock is running for a full six-year term after narrowly winning a special election in 2020, the state legislature approved a “heartbeat” bill that would ban abortions after a doctor can detect fetal cardiac activity, usually six weeks after conception.

• “The Democrats still have to have a clear economic message and a clear contrast,” Lake said, “but they just acquired a major component of their message for the fall.”

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