After conservative Ohio voted on Tuesday by more than 13 points to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution, speculation began immediately about how a liberal cause had fared so well and what that will mean for elections going forward.
Pro-abortion rights activists managed to flip four counties that previously voted for the August ballot initiative that was widely seen as a proxy vote for abortion. And in comparison to the 2020 election, when President Joe Biden won only seven counties in the state, the results were a landslide.
Democrats aren't entirely united on why they garnered such a dramatic victory, but theories abound. Ohioans don't want the government in their business. Disinformation enraged and mobilized pro-abortion rights voters. College students weren't on campus in August. Political pundits are still underestimating how much the overturning of Roe v. Wade infuriated voters.
But all the theories underscore one fact: Even in a conservative state, abortion mobilizes voters in favor of Democrats.
And while there is little doubt that the White House was elated about Tuesday's results looking ahead to Biden's re-election bid, the fine print in Ohio still offers some worrying signs for the president.
Biden’s re-election campaign posted a series of videos to X depicting Donald Trump taking credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“I did something that nobody thought was possible,” Trump said in a video. “I got rid of Roe v. Wade.”
“As he’s said many times, no one did more to pave the way for abortion bans than Trump, and he was proud and honored to do it,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa in a statement shared first with NBC News. “Republicans across the country are tied to Trump’s losing MAGA agenda of ripping away Americans’ fundamental freedoms and voters will hold Donald Trump and his MAGA buddies accountable next November.”
Pro-abortion rights activists won 25 counties, up from 22 in August when the state voted on a referendum to change the threshold for future ballot initiatives that was largely seen as a proxy vote on the abortion issue. Of those 25 counties, 18 voted for Donald Trump in 2020, including all four counties the pro-abortion rights activists flipped since August — three ringing Columbus and one north of Cincinnati.
One of the counties near Columbus, Union County, voted for the amendment by a slim 1.8 percentage point margin after going to Trump by more than 30 points in 2020.
"It's always been a joke in Union County that, 'Oh, there's, there's another Democrat here,'" said Tenah McMahan, chair of the Union County Democratic Party. She described her county as composed of mostly unaffiliated voters: a purple county with a "pretty strong fuchsia tinge."
She's not sure Union County will stay blue in 2024, but pointed to "staggering" growth in the county as a reason it saw a shift from the August to November votes.
Other Democrats pointed to a higher voter turnout as a reason their standings across counties improved since August. November's election saw an increase of more than 760,000 voters heading to the polls compared to August's vote.
Kathy Wyenandt, chair of Butler County Democrats, said she thinks fewer people were aware of August's election. Abortion rights supporters flipped Butler after it narrowly voted for the August measure, associated with being anti-abortion. Despite the flip, Democrats' strategy in Butler remained the same for the August vote, Wyenandt said.
"November's election had a little bit more steam with both the Issue 1 and Issue 2 being large," she said. Issue 1 was about abortion rights, while Issue 2 was about legalizing marijuana. Both passed.
A few key constituencies that supported Ohio's abortion amendment included Black voters, voters under 30 and women under 45, according to an NBC News exit poll.
"Suburban women don't like extremism," said Katie Paris, founder of Red Wine & Blue, an organization focused on mobilizing suburban women. "Suburban women have been very angry about the overturn of Roe, and we're seeing in state after state and now even county after county a resounding rejection of attacks on reproductive freedom."
Ohio's abortion vote comes just one year before voters head back to the polls for both a presidential and Senate election. Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown is up for re-election next year, but faces a tough bid for a fourth term in a state that has increasingly veered to the right in statewide elections. In 2022, Republicans JD Vance and Mike DeWine won their Senate and gubernatorial races, respectively.
Brown highlighted the difference between his and his opponent's stances on abortion when asked about his takeaways from Ohio's Tuesday election.
The election "tells me that Ohioans understand that women and doctors should make that decision, not politicians in Columbus," Brown said. "All three of my opponents are for a national abortion ban, and they are out of step with the reality in my state.”
Senate GOP candidates Bernie Moreno, Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan all opposed the abortion amendment.
"This is about protecting innocent life, protecting parental rights, and protecting our children," LaRose's campaign account posted to X. "Join us in voting NO on 1!"
LaRose is also Ohio's secretary of state and was embroiled in controversy when the Ohio Supreme Court handed the LaRose-led Ballot Board a victory, allowing them to keep controversial ballot language in place, including referring to a fetus as an "unborn child."
The Biden administration, campaign and Democratic National Committee touted Ohio's election results as proof that voters were rejecting the GOP's "extreme" agenda.
"Ohioans and voters across the country rejected attempts by MAGA Republican elected officials to impose extreme abortion bans ... " President Joe Biden said in a statement.
Next November, Biden will still need to overcome low approval ratings and a supermajority of Ohioans who want to see someone else run. Seventy-two percent of Ohio voters believe that Biden should not be running for president in 2024, according to an NBC News exit poll.
But Ohio Democrats point to Tuesday's results as a reason for optimism, arguing it may be evidence that voters are turning away from Trump, despite the state going to him in 2020 by about 8 points.
"I think that there are a large number of people who voted for Donald Trump in 2020, who now realized that they were sold a false bill of goods on not only what he could deliver, but who he is," said Chris Anderson, chair of the Mahoning County Democratic Party. Mahoning narrowly went to Trump in 2020, but voted in favor of the abortion protection amendment.
Democrats, including Biden, can work to fix their brands in Ohio by focusing on the issues mobilizing Ohio voters, said David Pepper, former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.
"We're a very pro-union state. We're a very — clearly a pro-choice state. We just legalized marijuana decisively," Pepper said. "Every one of those things is what Democrats are for and Republicans are against."
