Minnesota voters go to the polls November 8 to vote in the Midterm Elections, and while there will not be any specific ballot questions about abortion, the issue is still front and center for many on both sides of the issue. WCCO's Susie Jones looks at the issue in our series “Behind the Ballot”.
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, activists on both sides of the abortion debate in Minnesota started mobilizing to elect candidates who either move to restrict abortion access, or preserve it. While the issue is still critical for many, the intensity has waned somewhat.
“Now we recognize, with less than two weeks to Election Day, that it’s really hard to keep voters engaged on something that happened in June,” says political analyst Brian Mc Clung.
He says after the ruling, Democrats did a good job of rallying support and funding for their cause.
“They won over the people they were going to win over, in June, July, and August,” says McClung. “They kind of capped out, and that’s dangerous for a campaign because you need momentum.”
Mc Clung says in his opinion, Republicans stumbled somewhat after the ruling.
“Certainly I think you saw some missteps by Republican candidates, initially, while they were trying to figure out how to navigate this,” McClung told WCCO’s Susie Jones.
Republican Gubernatorial candidate Dr. Scott Jensen and his running mate Matt Birk found themselves facing negative backlash for their stance.
“Scott Jensen’s previous comments had been very hard lined, like ‘I think we should ban abortion’, to now Scott Jensen doing a TV commercial holding his grandbaby, talking about how now in Minnesota it’s not really an issue because we have an actual Minnesota Supreme Court Case that says it’s in the Minnesota Constitution.”
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Democratic Governor Tim Walz spoke out frequently on abortion during the Minnesota State Fair saying it would not be banned under “his watch”.
“We have stood with women making their own health care decisions, the ability to protect women to stay safe,” Walz said.
So as we near November 8th, McClung says it all comes down to timing.
“A lot of politics is timing, and I think we’re going to look back after November 8th and wonder if the timing on that Dobbs decision, if that had been a little closer to the Election, if had been easier for Democrats to have some of that momentum hold all the way through.”
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