{"id":844842,"date":"2022-10-18T13:04:54","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T13:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2022\/10\/democrats-midterms-abortion-inflation-economy-populism\/"},"modified":"2022-10-18T13:10:02","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T13:10:02","slug":"if-democrats-want-to-protect-abortion-rights-in-office-they-must-address-economic-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/10\/18\/if-democrats-want-to-protect-abortion-rights-in-office-they-must-address-economic-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"If Democrats Want to Protect Abortion Rights in Office, They Must Address Economic Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Democrats running in the upcoming midterms are rightfully pushing the need to protect abortion rights, but they are failing to tie that push to a populist economic message.<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\n An abortion rights activist leans next to his sign reading \"Roe Roe Roe Your Vote\" during a \"Bans Off Our Bodies\" rally at Old Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown, Pennsylvania on September 29, 2022. (Photo by Angela Weiss \/ AFP via Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

In 2014, Colorado hosted a US Senate race that for a time became a Democratic cautionary tale \u2014 but now seems like a foreboding preview of Democrats\u2019 2022 national election campaign.<\/p>\n

Amid the smoldering wreckage of the financial crisis, Democratic Colorado senator Mark Udall based his campaign message almost exclusively on his defense of abortion rights in a race against anti-choice Republican Cory Gardner. Udall was unfairly vilified by the national<\/a> and local<\/a> press for his laser focus. Ultimately, the Denver Post<\/em><\/a> editorial board endorsed Gardner, insisting the right winger\u2019s \u201celection would pose no threat to abortion rights\u201d and declaring that Udall\u2019s \u201cobnoxious one-issue campaign is an insult to those he seeks to convince.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two things ended up being true at the same time. It was true that despite the advantages of both incumbency and a respected surname, Udall lost the race because he was perceived to be a \u201cone-issue\u201d candidate who had ignored the 1992 Clinton campaign\u2019s mantra: \u201cIt\u2019s the economy, stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was also true that Udall was right that his loss would threaten reproductive rights \u2014 indeed, despite the Denver Post<\/em>\u2019s assurances to the contrary, Gardner went on to cast pivotal<\/a> Senate<\/a> votes<\/a> to appoint three of the right-wing Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade<\/em>.<\/p>\n

At the time, the moral of the story seemed clear: Democrats may lose winnable elections in tough economic times if they are not willing to break with their big donors and offer a populist economic message promising to fix the problems those donors are creating. Without that kind of economic message, they may lose even if they\u2019re right about conservatives\u2019 social-issue extremism.<\/p>\n

But eight years later, that lesson has been memory-holed as America faces the same scenario \u2014 at a much bigger scale. As the Lever<\/em><\/a> recently reported, Democrats confronting a pivotal election in another economic crisis are spending tens of millions of dollars on ads about abortion, while spending far less on ads addressing inflation or the economy \u2014 the two issues that a bevy<\/a> of<\/a> recent<\/a> polls<\/a> show voters are most worried about.<\/p>\n

Other data tell the same story: The Wesleyan Media Project<\/a> found that inflation has been mentioned in nearly 40 percent of television ads pushing GOP House candidates, but hasn\u2019t even ranked among the top issues being mentioned in ads pushing Democratic House candidates. And it is not as if Democrats are making up the gap online: Democratic groups are bankrolling<\/a> lots of abortion-related ads on Facebook, but barely spending anything on economy-focused messages.<\/p>\n

The result of that silence: survey data now show many voters do not think Democrats can be trusted on \u2014 or even care very much about \u2014 the inflation crisis that is defining the election:<\/p>\n