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Happy Wednesday morning.

Before Monday evening, when Politico scooped that the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling was on the verge of being overturned by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, abortion was barely registering as a blip on the political radar.

The big, overwhelming issues for 2022 were the economy, inflation, Covid-19, crime, immigration and Ukraine, according to numerous polls. Economic concerns – driven by soaring gas, food and housing prices – were what Americans wanted Congress and President Joe Biden to address, and Democrats were getting clobbered over their failure to do so.

This was true despite the fact that it had been clear for six months that the Supreme Court was likely to dramatically limit or overrule Roe in the Mississippi case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor lamented during a Dec. 1 hearing. But Justice Samuel Alito, whose Feb. 10 draft opinion set off this week’s uproar, showed he and the rest of the high court’s conservative majority was ready to do so. “Can’t a decision be overruled because it was wrong when it was decided?” Alito suggested.

Here are some data points that help illustrate just how much of a second-tier issue abortion was for most voters heading into this week:

→	Only one Democrat running for Senate had aired a television ad mentioning abortion in 2022 — Morgan Harper in Ohio, according to an AdImpact analysis provided to Punchbowl News. Harper, a progressive activist, was crushed by Rep. Tim Ryan in Tuesday’s Senate Democratic primary.

→	Just 19 total ads have run in Senate races this year on the subject of abortion. The overwhelming number – 18 – were paid for by Republicans or conservative groups.

→	When Gallup asked respondents what they thought was the most important problem facing the United States today, fewer than half of one percent answered abortion in December 2021, January 2022 or February 2022. In March 2022, that number slipped to zero.

→	The AP-NORC pollsters selected 11 issue areas in December 2021 when surveying respondents on what problems they would like the government to work on in 2022. Abortion didn’t even make the list.

→	In our very own February Canvass survey of top Hill aides, just eight percent said abortion would be a top focus for Congress in 2022.

→	Biden barely mentioned the issue during his State of the Union address on March 1, giving it only three sentences. A bill to codify Roe (the Women’s Health Protection Act) garnered only 46 votes in the Senate on Feb. 28.

All that has changed now, however. The big question is by how much? And what will the final decision look like in the Mississippi 15-week abortion ban case at the center of the controversy? Can Democrats use the shock and anger felt by abortion rights supporters over the looming Roe ruling to turn around what’s been looking like a dismal cycle for them?

Senate Republicans and Democrats have competing views of the implications of this pending decision. We talked to both Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chairman of the NRSC, and Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chair of the DSCC.

→	Scott told us that abortion may be an issue, but inflation, crime and the continuing problems at the U.S.-Mexico border will be top of mind for voters. “I think this is an important issue to many people, but so is inflation. So is crime. So is the border,” Scott said.

→	Peters put it this way: “When you take away women’s reproductive freedoms, that’s a motivating factor for people to get out to vote and Democrats are on the right side of the issue with a majority of the American people.”

Notably, you heard Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Tuesday try to get reporters to focus on the leak, not the substance of what was leaked. This is a process argument about the sanctity of the Supreme Court, which may be a worthwhile topic, but it pales in comparison to the implications of the looming decision.

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the number three Senate Republican, argued that the bombshell disclosure doesn’t change the reality that most Americans are facing in the their lives every day, despite the importance of abortion as an issue. Here’s Barrasso:

Yet contrast that to how Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer talked about the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision. Schumer said he was “infuriated” by what he’d seen in Alito’s draft document. Schumer was also irate at his GOP colleagues who voted for a conservative court and at the conservative justices for what he considered the faulty logic laid out in the tentative ruling.

Schumer’s Senate Democrats locked in tough reelection bids see the leaked Supreme Court draft decision as a game-changer for their campaigns.

→	New Hampshire: Sen. Maggie Hassan, speaking at the Emily’s List gala Tuesday, framed 2022 as the “most important election of our lifetimes.” Here’s more from Hassan, who normally dodges reporters at the Capitol:

“New Hampshire is one of the most pro-choice states in the country,” Hassan spokesperson Kevin Donohoe said, noting that Hassan had conducted seven local interviews about reproductive rights on Tuesday. “This is the biggest story of the day here.”

→	Nevada: Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s campaign sees abortion as a winning issue in the Silver State. In 1990, a majority of Nevadans voted to codify Roe v. Wade in the state.

Cortez Masto’s likely general election opponent, Adam Laxalt, signed the state onto anti-Roe amicus briefs as attorney general. In a statement Tuesday, Laxalt cheered the leaked draft decision but acknowledged the right to an abortion was “settled law” in Nevada.

→

Arizona: In a state that has recently enacted a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks, polling from September 2021 shows a large majority of residents lean pro-choice. Sen. Mark Kelly is a co-sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, while his potential GOP opponents have openly opposed abortion rights this cycle.

“What I’m focused on is women’s rights, not an election in November,” Kelly told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s up to the Senate to do something on women’s rights, and Congress in general. We can codify what Roe v. Wade did with regard to reproductive rights, we can do that with legislation. I hope we do it.”

The Senate is likely to vote on a bill to codify Roe next week. It is expected to fail, as it does not have 60 votes to clear a GOP filibuster. And Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have said they won’t back eliminating the filibuster to pass the bill.

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