Abortion was already a top issue. Alito made the Supreme Court one, too.
A Democratic agenda: Lose the filibuster, reform the court and revive Roe.
Failure to appreciate the salience of the abortion issue is one reason so many pundits, reporters and pollsters wrongly predicted a “red wave” in 2022. It’s one thing to poll a specific congressional race in, say, September; it’s another when voters finally enter the voting booth to register their views. Sign up for the Prompt 2024 newsletter for opinions on the biggest questions in politics This year, abortion remains a powerful issue for Democrats. And the focus on abortion might also make the Supreme Court itself a top issue for Democrats in a presidential campaign for the first time in a generation. The radical Supreme Court that reversed Roe v. Wade is increasingly unpopular and scandal-ridden. The importance of abortion — and, in turn, the Supreme Court responsible for overturning Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — marks a dramatic shift in the political landscape. In election after election going back to the early 1980s, Republicans used the Supreme Court to gin up their voters on a variety of issues, but especially on abortion. Democrats never really expected abortion access to disappear, so their presidential nominees did not rely as much on the Supreme Court to turn out their base. Now the tables are turned, at the very time the court has made a spectacle of itself.
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