Robert Hubbell wrote on his blog that pundits predicted that the overturning of Roe v. Wade wouldn’t change anything. Team Red and Team Blue were locked into place. Dobbs wouldn’t make a difference.
Hubbell said: Kansas proved the pundits were wrong.
The old rules no longer apply. While it is still too early to understand the full ramifications of the resounding defeat suffered by anti-choice Republicans in Kansas, this much is clear: Polling models based on “historical data” are broken. Pundits rely on those models at their peril. Three months ago, after the leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs, Sarah Isgur published an op-ed in Politico, Opinion | Abortion Might Not Be the Wedge Issue It Used to Be. Isgur wrote,
After years of partisan sorting on abortion, there probably aren’t many voters motivated by that issue left to turn out.
Isgur was about as wrong as she could be in her prediction. In her defense, she was undoubtedly applying the “old rules”—the ones that applied before the Supreme Court gave states control over women’s reproductive choices. But Isgur’s failure of imagination prevented her from seeing that “this time is different.” Early data from Kansas proves just how different it is. See Vox, 4 charts that show just how big abortion won in Kansas.
The article in Vox illustrates the many ways in which Isgur (and other pundits) were wrong. The first relates to the mistaken notion that reproductive freedom will not motivate turnout. That myth was dispelled by the largest turnout in Kansas history in a primary election—nearly double the normal turnout. See Chart 1 in Vox. No polling model assumed a 100% increase in turnout. The old rules no longer apply.
The second myth destroyed in Kansas was that “partisan sorting” had divided America into a “red team” and a “blue team” on abortion. Wrong. One reason for the substantial margin of victory for choice in Kansas was that 90,000 Republicans switched from the “red team” to the “blue team” on the abortion issue. Only 25% of voters in Kansas are registered Democrats, but the measure was defeated by 59% to 41%. See Charts 2 and 3 in Vox. The old rules no longer apply.
The third myth destroyed in Kansas was that reproductive choice would not motivate women to register and vote in larger numbers. Wrong, again. The final chart in the Vox article shows that before the leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs, women accounted for 52% of new voter registrations. After the release of the draft, women accounted for 58% of new registrations, and after the release of the final opinion in Dobbs, women accounted for 68% of new voter registrations. It turns out that telling women they are second-class citizens gets their attention. The old rules no longer apply.
The pundit class has risen to its collective defense by dampening expectations that the result in Kansas will apply in the midterms. In pundit-speak, the vote in Kansas was an “issues vote,” while the vote in November will be an “electoral vote,” i.e, a vote on candidates, not on issues. As explained in a Washington Post analysis of the outcome in Kansas,
“There is a big difference between asking people to weigh in on an issue and asking them to weigh in on a candidate who embodies a range of issue positions.”
The WaPo analysis concludes with this assertion:
I have highlighted the key phrase in the WaPo analysis above: “Rarely”—an explicit invocation of history and the “old rules” governing turnout in midterms. Pundits were caught off-guard by what happened in Kansas and are busy tut-tutting and tsk-tsking those who believe that the firmament has shifted. Democrats don’t need a 17% margin of victory (as in Kansas) to overturn “conventional wisdom” in the midterms. A 3% uptick for Democrats will produce a seismic shock in the midterms, leaving the pundits sputtering a new round of excuses and post-facto rationalizations.
“For many on the left, the results in Kansas were a reminder of precisely that point: Turnout matters. But electoral politics are rarely downstream from views on one single issue.”
Here’s my point: The victory in Kansas guarantees Democrats nothing, but it gives us reason to hope and reminds us once again that we are in uncharted waters—where existing maps are useless. Conventional wisdom is dead. We are not prisoners of the past and our choices are not controlled by massive datasets that describe behavior before Dobbs, before Bruen, and before January 6th. We control our fate going forward. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The question is: Will those republicans who voted to keep their medical privacy reject candidates who try to take it away?
Republican politics has been ruled since Roe by a weird coalition of libertarians and Roe opponents. The business Republicans, hiding behind the veneer of personal liberty, are chiefly interested in government keeping its hands off business. These guys would biol babies for their tallow if it would make them a dime. For years they have been willing to go along with Roe opponents who are anything but libertarian. Will this unlikely marriage endure? Or will evangelicals awaken to see that the Republican Party “is not their home, they’re only passing through.”(old hymn for those of you not raised that way)? If evangelicals realize this, will it lead to an evangelical stampede to a third party?
The Kansas vote was very specific. How will individual candidates fit into the new reality post Dobbs? Will we see candidates running attack ads claiming their opponents want to use Dobbs to prevent women from using contraceptives? Will questions like this drown out the rightwing drumbeat for ever more dedication to gun ownership?
It’s a SHOCK to each anti-abortionist in Kansas to realize that nearly two of every three people they know or see walking down the street or driving next to them on the roads, or working beside them don’t agree with them on the constitutional right to choose an abortion. That must make every anti-abortionist feel uneasy and surrounded by “enemies” who are family members, friends, and co-workers who voted to keep the state’s constitutional right to abortion.
There is no right to interracial marriage stated in the U. S. Constitution — but Clarence Thomas lives in an interracial marriage in spite of state laws that outlawed it but which were overturned because THE 9th AMENDMENT SAYS THAT RIGHTS DO NOT HAVE TO BE STATED IN THE CONSTITUTION IN ORDER TO BE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. There is no constitutional right to privacy mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but We the People have it because of the 9th Amendment. Here is the 9th Amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Then, the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause protects all those unstated rights. The right to abortion does NOT have to be stated in the Constitution in order to be a constitutional right…and there are many, many more unstated rights.
Benjamin Franklin, key Founding Father of America, shaper and signer of our Constitution, published a handbook titled “The American Instructor” that featured a long, detailed section on do-it-yourself abortion and conception prevention. The book was very popular throughout America, especially in the many farming towns where unwanted pregnancies were an economic hardship on farming families.
Franklin’s book should be republished and complimentary copies given to each of the “originalists” on the Court who claim that America has always been opposed to abortion.
Not only is the GOP (or GQP for QAnon?) an existential threat to our democracy but, honestly, so is the newsmedia. The polling and punditry, the sensationalist rhetoric, the deplorable use of qualifying language, it’s pathetically misleading. Throw in social media and everyone is reduced to a bunch of overweight middle-schoolers who are overmediated, overmedicated and undertaxed in every capacity.
nice: overmediated and overmedicated 🙂
Ignore what elected Republicans and Democrats say and pay attention to their actions.
Make a list of the issues those actions (votes on legislation in Congress – Vote Smart is a great source to find that info) reveal about each party and the results would reveal that republicans represent about 30% of the country’s values and Democrats about 70%.
To win elections, fascist Republicans lie a lot to the one-third that supports them and also influences Democratic voters through misleading propaganda with more lies to stay home and not vote.
If every registered Democrat and indie voter that votes for Democrats turned out to vote in every election, the fascists in the Republican Party would probably lose every election and only traditional republican conservatives would stand a chance to win.
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/
There is a silver lining of the SCOTUS decision and Kansas just proved it. By taking away rights of approx. 1/2 the population, people (mostly women) decided to exercise their political right to vote…..and vote they did! For far too long,(We the) people have felt betrayed by the politicians (both sides) we elect into office. That betrayal has led to “our” collective poor feelings about how our government is performing…. by the lack of voting (why the same people get elected all the time!). Kansas has sent a clear message to every politician that the jig is up…. “We” matter and “We” will vote to make it happen.
And here’s the thing, LisaM: the collectively poor feeling? That feeling has been by design since 1971 and they (the business class/ownership class) won. Look at the present state of our politics, then read Lewis Powell’s infamous 1971 memo on “saving the American free enterprise system.” The cynicism, apathy, disillusionment–all intended as part of the grand libertarian/neoliberal project. Books that address this: Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money,” Kurt Andersen’s “Evil Geniuses.” Excellent reads that’ll make you go “OOOOHHHHHH!!!” and “A-HA!, I see it now.” When you’re finished reading these, the rise of those maggoty lower-level deplorables such as Christopher Rufo, Steve Bannon, MTG, as the current system’s sentinels makes total sense.