Abortion rights supporters in Ohio secured a significant victory last week, and Republican women voters in the GOP stronghold might have played a crucial role, signaling challenges for the party on the matter in 2024.
Ohio voters passed the Issue 1 constitutional amendment last week to protect abortion access, with more than 56% in favor, according to unofficial state results that won't be finalized until Nov. 28.
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Exit poll results show that women made up a larger part of the electorate, 53%, and cast more "yes" votes than men, with 60% of all women supporting the initiative.
Republican strategist Susan Del Percio told USA Today that results in Ohio don't "happen unless Republican women also participate. They may not create the high turnout, but they have to be part of the turnout. Otherwise, you can't get those numbers."
Republicans have long struggled to unite the party on abortion policy, lacking messaging on the topic, which has caused problems for them ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer and will create a huge challenge for them in 2024.
"Republican women are not single-issue voters, and the election of 2023 is over. Ohioans are looking to the future. Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown have hurt middle-class families on a broad spectrum of issues, including crime, inflation, and education," Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex M. Triantafilou said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Unity on the topic is hard to come by, with top GOP presidential candidates split on the best approach.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has taken the hardest line of the candidates still in the race, arguing for a national six-week ban, such as the one he signed into law in Florida. Vivek Ramaswamy said he doesn't support a federal ban but does support a six-week ban at the state level.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie believes abortion should be up to the states, while former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley thinks a federal ban would not pass in Congress and supports access to contraceptives and strengthening the adoption process.
Former President Donald Trump, who helped pave the way for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, called DeSantis's six-week abortion ban in Florida "a terrible mistake" but has failed to lay out a clear policy position.
Seventeen months ago, the Supreme Court determined the Constitution does not protect the right to have an abortion, and Ohio saw a surge in women registering to vote shortly after the decision. Among new women voter registrants, Ohio saw around a 6.4% increase from before the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization draft opinion leak to after the ruling, according to calculations from the New York Times released in August 2022. Ohio does not ask for gender in voter registration data, so the outlet conducted the study using names.
A year after the Dobbs decision, 23% of Republican women support abortion access guaranteed by federal law, according to a June poll from All In Together, a nonpartisan women's organization. Still, far more GOP women, 39%, support government restrictions on abortion access.
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Under current state law, abortion procedures are banned after 22 weeks. However, Republican lawmakers introduced a "heartbeat bill" banning doctors from performing abortions after cardiac activity is detected, which can be as early as six weeks. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, the heartbeat bill became law, but it was stalled by a legal challenge. Ohio was the only state with abortion on the 2023 ballot, guaranteeing an individual right to abortion by Roe v. Wade standards.
"Ohio Republican women strongly disapprove of Joe Biden and his key Ohio ally, Sherrod Brown, and we are confident that Republicans will do very well in 2024," Triantafilou said.