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Midterms’ Biggest Abortion Battleground: Pennsylvania [1]

['Trip Gabriel']

Date: 2022-05-08

All four of the top Republicans heading into the primary on May 17 have said they favor strict abortion bans. Lou Barletta, a former congressman and one of two front-runners in the race, has said he would sign “any bill that comes to my desk that would protect the life of the unborn.”

Another top candidate, Doug Mastriano, said in a recent debate that he was opposed to any exceptions — for rape, incest or the health of the mother — in an abortion ban. Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, has introduced a bill in Harrisburg to ban abortions after a “fetal heartbeat” is detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. Another Republican bill would require death certificates and a burial or cremation after miscarriages or abortions.

Democrats are worried, in Pennsylvania and around the country, that their 2020 coalition lacks motivation this year after expelling Mr. Trump from the White House. The listlessness extends to Black, Latino and younger voters, as well as suburban swing voters. It was suburbanites, especially outside Philadelphia, who gave Mr. Biden his winning edge in the state.

Democratic operatives hope abortion will keep those independent voters — who have since swung against the president in polls — from defecting to Republicans.

“With Trump no longer aggravating suburban voters every week, Republicans were hoping to regain traction in the Philadelphia suburbs in 2022,” said J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist in the state. “The fall of Roe will make that less likely to happen.” Shavonnia Corbin-Johnson, political director of the State Democratic Party, said that the end of abortion access would “add to compounding racial disparities and maternal health” for minority communities, and that the party was planning to organize aggressively around the issue.

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/08/us/politics/midterms-abortion-pennsylvania.html

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