How Messages about Reproductive Rights Mobilize Voters

• In Event: Abortion Politics after Dobbs

Abstract

The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Whole Women’s Health reversed the right for pregnant people to obtain an abortion and made reproductive rights a highly salient political issue. Polling data in the year and a half since the Dobbs decision find that majorities of voters in all 50 states support preserving some access to abortion for people who become pregnant (PRRI, 2023), and public opinion research suggests growing support for reproductive rights over time (Norrander and Wilcox 2023). Preserving access to abortion was also thought to be a motivating political issue driving voters to the polls in the 2022 mid-term elections. The extent to which abortion is a dominant issue for voters and whether campaigns can use this issue to mobilize voters in the post-Dobbs era is not entirely clear. Past work suggests that public opinion can affect how institutions form abortion policies (Kim et al. 2023; Cizmar and Kalkan 2023; Caldarone, Canes-Wrone, and Clark 2009; Wlezien and Goggin 1993) and the salience of abortion can affect voter decision-making in some contexts (VanSickle-Ward et al. 2023; Matthews, Kreitzer, and Schilling 2020; Kim 2021). However, much of this existing research took place when abortion was interpreted as a right enshrined in the constitution.

This research investigates the extent to which abortion is an animating issue in elections by tracking how candidates use messages about abortion in their strategic campaign communication and how voters respond to these messages, including both pro-abortion and anti-abortion messages. I use multiple empirical methods to track the dynamics around abortion messages. I first identify how candidates frame abortion through an analysis of campaign emails from the 2022 mid-term elections and data from televised campaign advertising. For this analysis, I draw on recent research on abortion framing among elite political actors (Roberti 2021a, b; Rose 2011). Second, I deploy a series of survey experiments to investigate how voters respond to pro-abortion and anti-abortion messages from both Democratic and Republican political candidates. I find several key results. First, Democratic candidates were far more likely to emphasize abortion in their strategic political communication in 2022 compared to Republican candidates. Second, the experimental results suggest that pro-abortion messages can be highly mobilizing when they target Democratic voters, Independent voters, and moderate Republican voters, but the success of pro-abortion messages depends on the partisanship of the candidate and the voters. Democratic voters are more responsive to pro-abortion messages from Democratic candidates, and Republican voters are more responsive to pro-abortion messages from Republican candidates. Third, I find that anti-abortion messages mobilize Democratic voters to vote against candidates who favor restricting abortion access but that anti-abortion messages can be somewhat more mobilizing for Republican voters. These findings are consequential as abortion policy is an increasingly salient campaign issue in the hands of voters.

Author

• Nichole Bauer, Louisiana State University