How Abortion-Rights Backers Changed Their Message—and Started Winning

Shortly after November’s state-level elections affirmed voters’ support for abortion rights in Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, a Democratic pollster named Angela Kuefler got on a webinar to deliver an analysis—and a warning—to her fellow progressives. Yes, it was clear abortion was a winning issue, she said, but it mattered a lot how advocates talked about it.

“Talking about this in the context of values really widens our support,” said Kuefler, an adviser to the Nov. 7 ballot initiative in Ohio that added a right to abortion to the state’s constitution, winning by nearly 14 points in a state President Biden lost by eight. By values, she explained, she was principally talking about the idea of freedom. In polling by Kuefler’s firm, Global Strategy Group, majorities answered “yes” to both “Should we restore the rights we had under Roe v. Wade?” and “Should personal decisions like abortion be up to women rather than the government?” But the latter statement outperformed the former by a whopping 19-point margin, she noted, adding, “It’s the values language that allows us to win by such big margins.”