Abortion's Big Night
Plus: RFK Jr., Wichita's libertarian mayor, Hamas' death toll accuracy, the cult of Erewhon, and more...
Voters show up for abortion rights: Yesterday, voters across the country made clear that they oppose Republican-backed abortion restrictions. Andy Beshear, Kentucky's Democratic incumbent, won his reelection bid for governor after repeatedly hammering his opponent's opposition to abortion. In Ohio, both weed and abortion won when put to the people via ballot measures—the latter by 12 points. In Virginia, Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate. In Pennsylvania, Democrats won a state Supreme Court seat. (Both states saw a lot of abortion-related campaigning.)
"Abortion is the No. 1 issue in the 2024 campaign," Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, who publicly supported the abortion efforts in Ohio and Virginia, said Tuesday. In Ohio, Issue 1—which amends the state constitution to protect abortion up until the point of fetal viability, or around weeks 22-24—won, which means that Republicans will be thwarted in their attempts to ban abortion at six weeks of pregnancy. (Former Roundup writer/Ohioan Elizabeth Nolan Brown covered some of the Issue 1 controversy here.)
Many libertarians will find these abortion wins encouraging. I do not.
Although some of the language gestures toward freedom, much of it misrepresents the objections of pro-lifers. "Ohioans know that no matter how you feel about abortion personally, government should not have the power to make these personal medical decisions for the people you love," said one Issue 1 organizer. But how you feel about abortion frequently dictates whether you believe government intervention to be warranted, since one of the few defensible functions of government is protecting innocent beings from being aggressed against. The language of bodily autonomy—which we saw plenty of in the lead-up to these elections—focuses only on the rights of the mother, but never on the rights of the baby. Surely people on both sides can admit that the issue is so fraught because these rights come into conflict, with no easy resolution.
Still, it's undeniable that this is a galvanizing political issue and that Republicans haven't known how to message their beliefs—and allay people's fears about the consequences that stem from abortion bans—post-Dobbs. Generally speaking, the country is profoundly divided on abortion, with 61 percent believing it ought to be legal in all or most cases, and 37 percent believing it ought to be illegal in all or most cases. People tend to be broadly supportive of allowing abortion in the first trimester, but broadly opposed to permitting it in the second and third trimesters.
But "in states where abortion is prohibited, the share of people who say access to abortion should be easier has increased since August 2019," reported Pew in April. "About a third of adults (34%) say it should be easier for someone in the area where they live to obtain an abortion, an 8-point increase since 2019." Almost 20 percent of those surveyed, per Pew, say their views on abortion have changed in the last year or so since the Dobbs decision was handed down by the Supreme Court.
Interestingly, in Ohio, "the victory for Yes on Issue 1 was not driven by remarkable Democratic turnout—but by a significant share of voters in Republican-leaning counties casting their ballots for abortion rights," per a Politico analysis of the results.
Beyond abortion: Ohio just became the 24th U.S. state to legalize recreational weed (more from Reason's Jacob Sullum). Colorado's TABOR—which requires excess property tax revenue to be returned to the people—changes were defeated (more from Reason's Eric Boehm). And in Virginia, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin—who had tried to get a really solid legislative majority for his party—did not succeed. More here.
RFK Jr.'s second wind: The, uh, antiestablishment candidate made waves earlier in the presidential campaign season, then faded for a while, but he's back again—this time, pissing his former pals off with his recent comments on free speech while also polling surprisingly well. A New York Times/Siena College poll found significant support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. when up against Donald Trump and Joe Biden in battleground states and with younger voters:
The New York Times / Siena College Research Institute: Battleground States Poll
In 3-Way Race, Independent Robert Kennedy Jr. Garners 24% Across 6 Battleground States; Trump 35%, Biden 33%, Kennedy 24%; RFK Noses Ahead Among Voters Under 45https://t.co/RP2kHlceEY pic.twitter.com/DVTPWBvRrI
— SienaResearch (@SienaResearch) November 7, 2023
"When asked about the likeliest 2024 matchup, Mr. Biden versus Mr. Trump, only 2 percent of those polled said they would support another candidate," reports The New York Times. "But when Mr. Kennedy's name was included as an option, nearly a quarter said they would choose him."
"The findings suggest that Mr. Kennedy is less a fixed political figure in the minds of voters than he is a vessel to register unhappiness about the choice between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump."
Though I am not very fond of RFK Jr. (as previously established, to many people's chagrin), I am intrigued by people's possibly growing comfort with rejecting the awful front-runners put forth by the two major parties. I'm not optimistic that such polling data will convert to Election Day results, though.
Scenes from New York:
The fact that it mentions Brooklyn is bizarre (unless the sentiment is just plain old antisemitism). Lefty gentrification discourse—the idea that any neighborhood could be "owned" by any particular ethnic group, or that one has a claim to a place simply by nature of having lived there the longest—has never made sense because it feels reminiscent of far-right nativism. It also ignores that little thing we call property rights, in which you can buy a home or a tract of land and then decide what you do with it and who you allow to live on it, random people's feelings aside.
Settlers in occupied territories are indeed a problem. But the invocation of Brooklyn here suggests the charitable reading of this argument is "people should not be allowed to move to places where a different ethnic group predominates," which is a far right take https://t.co/u3HVvewPtU
— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) November 7, 2023
QUICK HITS
- Local reporter and solid tax-hater Lily Wu, who seems libertarian-ish, was just elected mayor of Wichita, Kansas.
- No! You can't access LaGuardia by subway, minus 10 points for city planners.
Honestly think the new LaGuardia Airport has increased my estimate of American state capacity by 5%. (Had been 8% until I looked at the price tag.)
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 7, 2023
- More on whether the Hamas-controlled health ministry is reliable at reporting death tolls: "There is even close consistency for MoH and UN totals for the 2008, 2014 and 2021 Gaza Wars," reports Action on Armed Violence. "In short, the MoH figures for the total numbers of Gazan fatalities in previous Israel-Hamas confrontations have proven reliable."
- A third of the buildings in the northern part of Gaza, where Israeli troops now have a stronghold, have reportedly been either destroyed or significantly damaged.
- The better thing would be for her to get perma-booted by voters, but this will have to do for now:
HOUSE approves censure against Rashida Tlaib 234-188.
22 Democrats voted in favor of it.
4 Republicans opposed the measure.
— Mica Soellner (@MicaSoellnerDC) November 8, 2023
- Don't forget to stock up on booze—there's a GOP debate tonight, at 8 p.m. Eastern.
- It's the Erewhon cult content you've been waiting for.
- The only thing more hilarious than the fact that USA Today hired a full-time Taylor Swift reporter is that it's a dude, so now people are big mad.
- Yep:
propaganda for me but not for thee pic.twitter.com/C605tOVUC3
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) November 7, 2023
- Pretty much:
This should be the easiest thing to at least perfunctorily condemn but nope, not easy for her. https://t.co/BLtP0pysw3
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) November 7, 2023
