This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th, and republished through Rewire News Group‘s partnership with the 19th News Network. 

In Wisconsin, a liberal candidate for state Supreme Court won her April race by 20 points after highlighting her work supporting abortion rights. In Georgia, two liberal candidates running for their state’s highest court are running on their opposition to the state’s six-week abortion ban. And in California, a Planned Parenthood leader is running for Congress as a Democrat after Republicans slashed funding for the organization last year. 

The economy and the cost of living are driving voters’ concerns and Democratic campaigns’ messaging going into the 2026 midterms. But abortion is still shaping messaging in state-level and especially state supreme court elections. Several Democratic strategists and abortion rights advocates told The 19th it could be a more prominent issue in the midterms than many expect.  

“There’s going to be a focus on this by the Democratic campaigns, even if it’s not as prominent in the discourse as affordability,” said J.J. Abbott, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist. 

“I just think that it’s too ripe an issue for the Democratic base, it’s a really strong issue with a lot of independents, and it’s a disqualifier,” he added, dissuading many voters concerned about the issue from voting Republican. 

Abortion was a major campaign issue after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, setting off a wave of state-level abortion bans. Anger over the decision helped Democrats defy historical trends to stem losses in the 2022 midterms, and voters in red and blue states alike passed new constitutional amendments enshrining access to the procedure.

It was one of the issues at the center of then-Vice President Kamala Harris’  2024 presidential campaign. But after her loss to now-President Donald Trump amid voter discontent with inflation, the issue has largely faded from the political discourse. Democrats have focused their messaging on high prices and affordability and hammered the Trump administration over its aggressive mass deportation agenda and, more recently, the war in Iran. 

Mini Timmaraju, president of abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All, argued that access to health care, including abortion, is inherently tied to affordability and the high cost of living. 

“It’s never been a more difficult time to have a family, and then eliminating the freedom to decide if, when and how to have a family, and all the investment and support that’s lacking to have a family makes the crisis compounded, right?,” she said. “American voters want to see solutions to all of these problems, and they don’t vote single........

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