Far From Texas, The Virginia Governor’s Race Will Test How Abortion Motivates Voters

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Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat running for a second term, answers questions from the media after touring Whole Woman’s Health of Charlottesville on Sept. 9. He’s working to rally voters in response to Texas’ restrictive new abortion law.





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The Virginia race pits former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe against Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin, the former CEO of the Carlyle Group private equity firm.

The Texas law has made abortion a bigger issue than it already was in the campaign. Abortion-rights opponents have been displeased with outgoing Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam.

Then, a July video posted by a website called the American Independent raised the temperature of the state’s abortion debate. It shows Youngkin telling a woman posing as an abortion-rights opponent that talking about restricting abortion will make winning harder.

«When I’m governor and I have a majority in the House, we can start going on offense, he said. «But as a campaign topic, sadly, that in fact won’t win my independent votes that I have to get.

McAuliffe has plastered the video of Youngkin across local television markets in campaign ads.


Democrats want to talk abortion rights. For Republicans, it’s the economy


McAuliffe has emphasized his support of abortion rights and said he would sign a law making it easier to get a third-trimester abortion if the patient’s life is in danger.

Youngkin, meanwhile, has said he wouldn’t sign a law like the one in Texas, which bans abortions after about six weeks and furthermore rewards citizens for successfully filing suit against people who break that law. He also dodged a question about whether he’d sign a «fetal heartbeat bill but did say that he supports a «pain threshold bill. Those types of bills ban abortion after 20 weeks.

And both candidates have worked to paint each other’s positions as extreme, a logical tactic given that Americans’ views on abortion largely exist somewhere between the two furthest poles in the debate. A plurality of Americans, 48%, believe abortion should be legal in some circumstances, according to Gallup. Meanwhile, around one-third believe it should always be legal, and one-fifth believe it should always be illegal.

However, their tactics differ in the fact that Youngkin is not embracing the issue as much as McAuliffe.

«It speaks to a pretty familiar idea in politics that the side that feels more threatened by something is probably the one that gets more motivation out of it, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia. «And so the side that maybe feels more threatened that the abortion status quo is going to change is the Democrats right now.





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Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin bags groceries for a customer during a campaign stop at Hispanic-owned supermarket Todos on Sept. 15 in Woodbridge, Va. Youngkin is trying to make inflation a focus of the campaign, pledging to repeal Virginia’s grocery tax.





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But that small share matters in a tight race, says Olivia Gans Turner, president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, which advocates against abortion rights.

«When you have a race as tight as this and we motivate the pro-life vote to get out [and] do what they can do, the Democrats should be afraid, she said. «Because that’s going to matter in this election.

Then again, abortion can motivate a voter even without it being the person’s top issue. Which brings us back to Morgan Byrd, the new Planned Parenthood canvasser. NPR asked her what she cares about most in this election:

«I’d say for the state of Virginia, it’s probably not reproductive rights, because I have a little bit more faith in them and our leaders, she said. «So I’d say maybe things like climate change and things like that.

But it was abortion rights that got her out to volunteer. And still more galvanizing abortion decisions could be on the way, right in the middle of the midterm campaign. Next year, the conservative Supreme Court is set to rule on a Mississippi abortion ban.