Democrats are running on abortion everywhere — even in Kentucky

It was once unthinkable for a Democrat running statewide in a red state like Kentucky to win on abortion. Now, in the final stretch of a campaign to defend the governor's mansion, Democrats are betting hard that they can ride it to victory.

The investment in abortion rights messaging comes after Democrats have seen the issue deliver for them electorally again and again — especially after a blowout victory in conservative-leaning Ohio in a proxy war over abortion rights just last month.

Kentucky's Democratic governor is laying into his opponent about the deep-red state's strict abortion ban. Virginia Democrats are re-running a message that failed them two years ago. And an Ohio ballot initiative is trying to codify abortion rights in a state President Joe Biden lost by eight points.

The ads home in on a message Democrats successfully used last year, and tailors it even more sharply to try winning voters over who may have not been moved in the past: limited access to abortion is no longer a theoretical issue. Many of the ads focus on real stories, including from rape victims. In bluer states, the message is about abortion rights and health care. In Kentucky, Democrats' ads don’t mention the word “abortion” at all.

“There was a believability gap that, ‘nothing was going to happen to Roe,’” said Tamarra Wieder, the Kentucky state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates. “Once Roe fell, and Kentucky was thrown into losing the two health care providers of abortion care immediately, it was very stark” for voters.

Republicans are responding by trying to turn the tables, arguing that Democrats are the extremists who support practically no limits on abortion — something that was largely unsuccessful the handful of times Republicans deployed it in the midterms.

November’s elections will test the saliency of the backlash to the end of Roe a year-and-a-half after POLITICO reported it would be overturned. The results will also show whether voters respond to abortion not only in the suburban battlegrounds that have been central to the last half-decade of political fights, but more broadly across the American electorate. And the races this year will also be an early stalking horse on Biden’s reelection campaign — which has signaled he will lean heavily into protecting abortion rights — as well as the fight for control of Congress.

“We have seen abortion come up in basically every race where it could possibly be part of the conversation, often because it's the thing that's the most motivating,” said Amanda Litman, the co-founder and co-executive director of Run for Something, a group that recruits and supports down-ballot Democrats. “It's a turnout driver, so it would be stupid not to bring it up.”

Just look at Kentucky, where Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and his allies have launched a broadside against his opponent, state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, on abortion — in a state that then-President Donald Trump carried by nearly 26 points in 2020.

The ads from Beshear’s campaign — one launched earlier this month featuring a county prosecutor and another this week with a young woman who said she was raped as a child by her stepfather — hammer at Cameron for saying he supports the state’s current law on abortion access, which is among the strictest in the nation. That law bans abortion in nearly all situations, save for limited exceptions for life of the mother, and with no exceptions for cases of incest or rape.

The ads from Beshear’s campaign are striking, direct-to-camera testimonials from the two women. Neither ad mentions the word “abortion” directly, and both focus on the strict lack of exemptions in the law. “I'm speaking out because women and girls need to have options,” the rape victim, who is identified as Hadley, says. “Daniel Cameron would give us none.”

Democrats believe the ad style is effective, both in Kentucky and in other races.

“It’s the authority of the medical experts and the stakes — or the emotional resonance — of a real story,” said Scott Kozar, a veteran Democratic admaker who is working on Virginia legislative races later this year.

Cameron has said repeatedly that he supports the current law in Kentucky. But he appeared to change his position earlier this week, saying he would sign a bill that allowed for exceptions if it landed on his desk if he were governor. And when asked about the recent ad, a campaign spokesperson pointed to a minute-long video in which Cameron calls Beshear’s ads a “disgusting and false attack,” saying Beshear is an “extremist” beholden to Biden and Planned Parenthood.

Wieder, of Planned Parenthood, said the group’s research shows that “abortion is a winning issue, and it unites people from all party affiliations, religious identities and geographical boundaries” in Kentucky. She noted that a proposed amendment that would have codified anti-abortion language in the state constitution failed by about five points last November. The political arm of Planned Parenthood recently launched ads going after Cameron on the state’s abortion laws.

Virginia Democrats are also going hard on abortion messaging for this fall's elections — just two years after voters didn’t respond to similar messaging, ultimately resulting in a banner year for the GOP.

More than 40 percent of the TV ads Democratic candidates have aired this year since the June primary have mentioned abortion rights, according to data from the ad tracking firm Ad Impact, making it easily the top issue for Democrats in Virginia.

Former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe ran heavily on abortion rights in his comeback bid in 2021, warning that then-candidate Glenn Youngkin posed a threat to abortion access in the state and promising to be a “brick wall” on women’s rights.

The first-time candidate defeated McAuliffe in a two-point upset, with the GOP also riding Youngkin’s coattails to flip the state House.

This year’s legislative elections are now a rerun of that fight, with Youngkin-backed legislative candidates echoing the governor’s successful messaging from two years ago and Democrats betting that this year, their message on abortion will get through to voters.

The "fall of Roe changed everything" since McAuliffe’s loss, Amy Friedman, the executive director of the Virginia House Democratic caucus, said. “That's something that I think people didn't want to believe was possible. And now it has become all too clear.”

Republicans tried and failed to pass a 15-week abortion ban, which Youngkin cast as a consensus policy in the state. And Republicans have even tried to go on offense on abortion, with state House Republicans launching an ad campaign this week saying Virginia Democrats support “no limits” on abortion.

Abortion-rights supporters in red-leaning Ohio are also embracing the strategy of using testimonials to emphasize how concrete the issue is. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, the coalition supporting a November ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, launched an ad earlier this week featuring a couple sharing their story of crossing state lines to receive an abortion.

Ohio has been a battleground for abortion rights for months. In August, voters handily turned down a GOP-led effort to make it more difficult to amend the state’s Constitution, one that would have made it more difficult to pass November’s abortion amendment. Ohio’s current law allows abortions through 22 weeks of pregnancy, but a six-week ban could be reinstated by the courts.

The outcome of these races in Kentucky and Virginia will be the best test since the midterms on abortion messaging, building on overperformances by Democrats in special elections across the country, with many candidates making abortion rights a central part of their campaigns.

Should the November elections continue that trend, it could shape Democrats’ strategy in 2024.

Biden has already signaled his campaign will heavily lean on abortion-rights messaging next year. And Trump has called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban “terrible” and blamed abortion for the GOP’s lackluster midterms.“We can win elections on this issue, but it’s very delicate and explaining it properly is an extremely important thing,” Trump, who appointed half the Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe, told social conservative groups recently. “You have to be able to speak and explain it properly.”