A Washington Post columnist sounded the alarm about a Michigan bellwether congressional district potentially slipping from the Democratic Party’s grasp because local voters aren’t as animated by abortion as they used to be.
The Post’s James Hohmann wrote on Tuesday that he spoke to Democratic operatives on the ground in Michigan who see less enthusiasm for one of the party’s top issues in the district. It prompted him to wonder whether abortion would be a less animating force in elections across the country.
He opened the piece, asking, "What if abortion is not the galvanizing issue on Election Day that Democrats are expecting? What I heard in Michigan recently made me wonder. Here in the 7th District, a congressional bellwether carried by Donald Trump in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, many voters just don’t prioritize the right to choose nearly as much as they did two years ago."
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Hohmann noted that the 7th District, which includes the state capital, Lansing, and suburban areas near Detroit, went for former President Trump in the 2016 election, but elected Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., in 2022, who is now seeking the state's open U.S. Senate seat.
Now fellow Democrat and aide to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Curtis Hertel, is running against Republican Tom Barret to fill Slotkin’s congressional seat. Barret, a former U.S. Army member and pro-lifer, lost to Slotkin in 2022, but Hertel’s team may not find him as easy to beat as Slotkin did.
The columnist said that in the midst of this close race, Hertel’s surrogates are finding that voters aren’t responding to abortion as much as they used to, which could spell problems for the party at large.
"But after Hertel delivered a pep talk to 16 volunteers at a party field office here on a recent Saturday afternoon, state Rep. Jennifer Conlin (D) told the group that she had just returned from knocking on doors and expressed amazement at how much less abortion comes up than when she won two years ago in the aftermath of Dobbs," Hohmann stated.
"That’s largely because many Michiganders feel a woman’s right to choose was guaranteed after voters overwhelmingly passed a state ballot referendum in 2022 to enshrine a right to the procedure in the state constitution."
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Apparently, the issue being less of a priority for some voters is "making it harder for Democrats to appeal to the multitudes of center-right women who crossed over to vote for Slotkin, Whitmer and the abortion initiative in 2022," he argued.
Hohmann continued, noting how this is another dynamic contributing to "growing anxiety among top Democratic operatives that enthusiasm about voting for [Harris] has gotten shakier" in blue wall states she needs to win like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
