WASHINGTON--When Michele and Matthew Nielsen voted in the U.S. midterm elections in Georgia, concerns about the economy did not dictate their choices. They wanted to protect abortion rights and stop candidates beholden to Republican former president Donald Trump.
“If someone wants me to vote Republican, that's fine, but they should probably not mention abortion and they should probably not mention Trump," Matthew Nielsen, 33, said outside a polling place in Alpharetta, Georgia.
The couple had supported a mix of Democrats and Republicans in the past. This time they voted for U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat. They voiced concerns shared by millions of other voters who supported Democratic candidates in surprising numbers, denying Republicans the so-called “red wave” election they had been expecting.
By Wednesday, any wave had flattened out into a ripple. Republicans remained on track to seize control of the U.S. House of Representatives – as had long been predicted – but by narrower margins than had been forecast. Which party would control the Senate was unclear and may not be decided until a runoff next month in Georgia.
Republicans were confident that Democratic President Joe Biden's unpopularity and Americans' angst over rising food and gas prices would help them take the majority from Democrats in both houses. Exit polling and interviews with analysts and voters showed that while inflation was a leading driver for voters, the issue of protecting abortion rights was nearly as paramount.
That surprised Democratic Party strategists and pollsters, who had expected inflation would trump everything, including concerns about the loss of abortion rights. They had urged the party to spend more time focusing on inflation.
Even White House officials worried in the last days of the campaign that they had spent too much time talking about abortion and too little about high prices. This was reinforced by national opinion polling, which appeared to show voters much more concerned about inflation.
Voters also told Reuters they were concerned about the Republican Party’s persistent embrace of Trump, who has signalled he could launch another presidential bid next week. According to exit polls by Edison Research, 58% of voters held an unfavorable view of Trump, compared to 39% who viewed him favorably.
When the Supreme Court stripped away longstanding U.S. constitutional abortion rights in June, it galvanized the Democratic base, resulted in a flood of new voter registrations and steered some independents toward Democratic candidates.
“Midterms are usually determined by which party is angrier, which is why the president’s party normally loses,” said Jared Leopold, who has worked in Democratic politics at both the Senate and gubernatorial levels. “But the abortion issue scrambled that dynamic.”
Independent voters, who historically move away from the party in power in midterm elections, instead voted with Democrats over Republicans by a 49-47% margin, according to Edison's exit polls. The shift was driven by women who identified as independents.
Overall, 31% of voters said inflation was their top concern and 27% said abortion was the biggest issue. Crime and immigration were each cited by just one in 10 voters.
But among women, who made up a slight majority of voters this year, abortion edged out inflation as the top issue by 5 percentage points. Overall, women broke for Democrats 53% to 45% - a smaller spread than the 15-point advantage Biden had over Trump among women in the 2020 presidential contest. But Democrats' strength with women may have at least helped the party stem its losses.
