LAS VEGAS — It isn’t just Republicans trying to discourage ticket-splitting in the Senate battlegrounds.
In the handful of states where abortion is on the ballot alongside competitive Senate races, Democrats are looking to use the overwhelming popularity of abortion rights to help their candidates.
That’ll require confronting their own ticket-splitting problem — independents and moderate Republicans who favor abortion rights but still vote for GOP candidates down the ballot.
“We don’t want voters to split their freedoms,” Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson told us after rallying for Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) here. “When they split their vote, they are splitting their freedoms, they are canceling their vote, literally.”
Abortion ballots: While Republicans are trying to limit the number of Donald Trump voters who break for a Democratic Senate candidate, Democrats are trying to discourage ticket-splitting on an issue that has lifted their party to unlikely victories across the country since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
This has sometimes proven difficult given how broadly abortion rights appeal beyond the Democratic base.
“The ballot measures are going to out-perform Democrats in every state,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom For All. “We have a lot of Republicans who are still uncomfortable with identifying as anything other than Republican, but are very comfortable on the ballot measures.”
Timmaraju said it’s “problematic” to assume that an abortion ballot initiative “automatically” helps Democrats.
Abortion has been a major issue in nearly all of the close Senate races. In general, the GOP candidates have insisted they won’t support a federal abortion ban. That includes Sam Brown, the Republican challenging Rosen.
But Rosen has zeroed in on Brown’s previous statements about abortion — including when he was running for office in Texas — to argue that voters can’t trust him on this critical issue.
Democrats are also broadening the debate beyond just abortion, noting that Republicans opposed Democratic bills on IVF and contraception. These were messaging votes put forward by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier this year.
“They can say or do anything they want, but their votes show who they are. And they will vote against this every time,” Rosen told us. “Don’t let them cover up any of this to try to fool us to win a race.”
Outside groups: Democratic candidates are also benefiting from the work of pro-abortion rights groups. These organizations are at the center of efforts to persuade voters who support abortion rights to also vote for Democrats down the ballot.
Jessica Mackler, the president of EMILYs List, told us ahead of Rosen’s rally that codifying abortion rights at the state level “isn’t going to be enough if we put Republicans in power at the national level.”
“The imperative is to wrap those races around the stakes for reproductive freedom,” Mackler said. “That’s how Democrats have elected candidates on the issue of reproductive freedom in Kentucky and Kansas and many places that are red and purple.”
