It’s been well established that Joe Biden’s poll numbers are terrible. In addition to being behind Trump in national polling, he’s also trailing him in battleground state polling. It is widely acknowledged that the outcome of the 2024 election will come down to a small number of battleground states, and one of them is Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016, but in 2020, Biden narrowly took the state, though there are countless sworn statements from poll workers claiming shenanigans were going on that may have impacted the results. Regardless of what you believe about what happened in Pennsylvania in 2020, polls today show a tight race in the state, and several show Trump winning. It’s a state that Joe Biden can’t afford to lose in November.
And Democrats have a plan to ensure that he doesn’t.
According to a report from The Messenger, Pennsylvania Democrats are looking to put an abortion referendum on the ballot in November to help drive liberal turnout.
Similar efforts were made in the 2004 presidential election when same-sex marriage bans were put on state ballots in various states. At the time, public sentiment toward same-sex marriage wasn't what it is today, and many in the media claimed that these ballot initiatives helped drive turnout among conservative evangelical voters, helping George W. Bush win reelection. But the overwhelming majority of the states with those ballot initiatives were red states that were going to vote for Bush anyway.
But Pennsylvania is a genuine battleground state that tends to vote blue. Can it work there?
Well, not really.
In short, there isn’t enough time to pull off getting a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion on the ballot by November. According to Ballotpedia, it would require "legislative approval during two successive legislative sessions before they're referred to the ballot for voters to decide.” So, that’s just not in the cards. There also aren't enough votes to make it happen, as the Pennsylvania House has a slim Democrat majority and the state Senate is under Republican control.
For our VIPs: The Three Pillars of Biden’s Reelection Strategy
But that doesn't mean Democrats won't try to make abortion a key issue of the election to drive turnout from their base.
Pennsylvania House and Senate Democrats could simply put forward a constitutional amendment for a vote in each chamber, putting all elected officials on record and using that as fodder for mail and ad campaigns in the fall.
Basic, but in this climate, important and likely to be effective in the election.
Governor Josh Shapiro, in his 2022 campaign messaging, has already come out strong and on the record for abortion rights. But the governor has no power to do anything to enshrine these existing rights in the constitution or anything else.
Pro-abortion Democrats, citizens, and advocacy groups across Pennsylvania will likely pull out all the stops to motivate like-minded voters to go to the polls this November, reminding them these rights we think are secure can easily be stripped away — but they don’t have the power to make a constitutional amendment happen.
Democrats widely believe that the abortion issue is what prevented a red wave in 2022, and it stands to reason that they will find all sorts of ways to exploit it again in the hopes of keeping Joe Biden in the White House.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member