Ohioans are voting in an election that was never supposed to happen. It is poised to become the latest data point of how conservatives are still struggling to respond to a public that remains incensed that the Supreme Court gutted nationwide abortion rights.
Republicans in the state set the August election as a way to get ahead of a then-expected and now-guaranteed November vote that would enshrine abortion access in the Ohio constitution.
As of now, constitutional amendments can pass in the state by a simple majority, but the Republican-controlled legislature wants to raise the threshold to 60%. They also want to impose additional restrictions that would make it harder for any future advocates to put a proposed amendment on the ballot, such as eliminating a 10-day period that allows petitioners more time if signatures are invalidated.
A proxy battle around abortion
Questions about outside interests have dominated the debate over Issue 1. Ohio Republicans who pushed the measure argued that a higher threshold was needed to keep future amendments focused only on what Ohioans want. US Sen. JD Vance made exactly those same points during an interview with Insider.
“The anti-populist argument I would make about this stuff,” Vance previously told Insider, “is that very often, these campaigns are funded and created by out of state interests who come in, use an off-cycle election to change the constitution of the people of Ohio, knowing that during midterm elections fewer people vote, and that’s how a lot of things have happened in the state of Ohio in the last few years.”
While some proponents don’t want to explicitly make it about abortion, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is also a Republican, has also made it clear that the special election is “100%” about abortion.
“It merely asks Ohioans if they want to approve a 60% threshold or not by voting in a free and fair election,” State Rep. Brian Stewart, a Republican, told the Columbus Dispatch in May. “If that is really someone’s idea of an attack on democracy, they need to turn off cable news, log off Twitter and come back to reality. It’s not the end of the debate.”
One of the largest proponents of the August vote is Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein, one of the biggest GOP megadonors in the nation. Uihlein has given at least $4 million to a group running ads urging support of the new threshold, per the Ohio Capital Journal.
Opponents of raising the threshold have aired ads that depict an old Republican lawmaker trying to stop a couple from having sex.
“Keep Republicans out of your bedroom,” Progress Action Fund’s 30-second ad ends.
Ohio Republicans previously banned most August elections. As WOSU previously reported, they pointed out that only 7.9% of registered voters cast ballots in an August 2022 election that cost the state $20 million. Early voting featured long lines in some of the state’s largest counties, making it almost guaranteed the race will smash last year’s turnout.
Right now, abortion is legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, but that is only because a much more restrictive ban has been put on hold.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, previously signed a so-called “heartbeat bill” into law that would effectively ban almost all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The law did not include exceptions for rape or incest. An Ohio judge previously stayed the law pending legal challenges.
The proposed amendment that will go before voters in November would establish a state constitutionally-protected right to abortion access. It would allow restrictions after fetal viability, which is around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Fetal viability was the standard established by Roe v. Wade until the Supreme Court gutted nationwide abortion rights in its 2022 landmark ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson.
Republicans still haven’t figured out how to talk about abortion.
Nationally, conservatives are still grappling to find an effective response on abortion.
The 2022 midterms illustrated that voters are furious over the Supreme Court’s decision. The GOP presidential primary race has split over candidates who back a bare-minimum nationwide abortion ban and those who do not. Former President Donald Trump has declined to specifically back a nationwide ban. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed a law effectively banning most abortions in his state after six weeks, has also refused to back a ban.
Polling shows that a nationwide ban is broadly unpopular, but the nomination contest provides the perfect time for anti-abortion activists to pressure candidates on the issue.
Voters who have been specifically asked to weigh in on abortion issues have handed a string of wins to abortion rights advocates, including in states such as Kansas and Kentucky. Previous polling showed that 58% of Ohioans would back the November amendment. It would be a worrying sign given the possible 60% threshold, but the same survey found 57% oppose raising the threshold.
