I don’t know. You don’t know. Nobody knows.
Less than two hours after Politico reported Monday evening that the U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, Beto O’Rourke leaped into action.
“It’s never been more urgent to elect a governor who will always protect a woman’s right to abortion,” the Democratic gubernatorial candidate tweeted.
The next morning, he hosted an Instagram Live with Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood and the newest member of his campaign. By noon, he emailed supporters asking for a donation to help him fight for reproductive rights. He quickly scheduled abortion rights events in Austin and Houston through the end of the week.
O’Rourke, who is polling 11 points down from Gov. Greg Abbott, is seizing on a moment that Democrats have long feared was coming — the end of a constitutional protection for the right to have an abortion. But many Democrats said they’re hopeful that the looming threat of such a stunning political sea change could provide the strongest opportunity yet to energize their voters heading into an election year in which Republicans have been expected to dominate in Texas and beyond.
“Everyone’s got to pull their oar in the same direction, and we’ve got to do it with a common purpose,” said Wendy Davis, a former Democratic state senator who rose to prominence in 2013 for a 13-hour filibuster of a bill to restrict abortion access in Texas. “I know I intend to really lean into that message as we go into November — that we have a real opportunity to break through and elect Democrats at the statewide level from Beto O’Rourke down in a way that we haven’t before.”
The poll cited is one by the Texas Politics Project; It was from mid-April, so well before the draft opinion leaked. It was also the first poll result we’ve seen since mid-March, and looking at the Reform Austin poll tracker, it’s on the high end of results for Abbott. I suppose it made sense to cite the most recent polling data, but a little more context might have helped.
Beyond that, who knows? Maybe there will be a polling effect – the first national poll since the opinion leaked didn’t show much of an effect, but it’s very early days. It’s also important to remember that the words and actions, or lack of actions, by the various political actors will have their own effect, either to amplify or dampen people’s initial reactions. We also don’t know how long any of this may last, or if the official release of the opinion, whether toned down a bit or not, will stir everything up again or just get an echo of the current reaction since it will be in a sense old news. There’s a 100% chance that numerous red states will use the Dobbs ruling as a springboard for all kinds of crazy things, and who knows how that will go. Right now, there are big crowds attending protest rallies and Beto events that are doubling as protest rallies; Beto’s been drawing good crowds for months now, but the protest part of it is new. How long will that last? What will Greg Abbott and his team of dark artists do with the millions he’s been hoarding in response? What might come along to take attention away from what is happening now? Like I said, I don’t know. Neither do you, and neither does anyone else. We’ll all learn about it in real time.
