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While 19 states have passed legislation banning or restricting abortion since the Dobbs ruling, other efforts have fallen short. Voters in Kansas last year rejected a proposed amendment that would have said there is no right to abortion under the state constitution, while in Michigan, voters approved an amendment guaranteeing the right to an abortion.

Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, citing the number of Michigan State University students who registered and voted on Election Day, has credited the Michigan referendum with helping her to win what was expected to be a tight race by more than 5 percentage points.

"One thing we've learned since Dobbs is that abortion is not a partisan issue," said Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland who specializes in reproductive rights. "Abortion rights are pretty popular even among Republicans, but what tends to happen in states like Ohio is that Republicans tend to win broadly because people don't vote just on that issue. Theres the gerrymandering plus this mismatch between what individual Republican voters think about reproductive choice and how the Republican politicians vote when they get in office.

You might expect some type of compromise position to arise in some of these states, Hill said. I think that some of the Supreme Court justices imagined that was the world we'd end up in and its been just the opposite, especially in red states, where politics has pulled those legislatures toward more and more extreme abortion bans.

Anit-abortion groups aligned with Republicans, such as the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, have argued that Republicans shouldnt shy away from advocating for their position on abortion. The group is advocating for all Republican presidential candidates to support limiting abortion to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy and to advocate for that standard nationwide.

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A year after Dobbs leak, Democrats still see abortion driving 2024 ... - Roll Call