Abortion May Be the Sleeper Issue of 2020

Over at Politico, Tim Alberta takes the pulse of the very white, very leafy, very affluent suburb of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. It’s massively pro-Trump, of course, but when Alberta asks people why they like the guy he gets the same answer over and over: abortion. “The Democrats are so far to the left on abortion now that it’s impossible to vote for them,” says one resident. “I’m pretty close to a one-issue voter,” says another. “Abortion is the thing I care about most.” Half a dozen others followed suit.
Before you scoff at this as just the product of chance, check out the most recent Gallup poll on abortion as a voting issue:
Since Donald Trump was elected, the number of single-issue abortion voters has increased from 23 percent to 30 percent. Trump himself doesn’t talk much about abortion, but it’s an issue that’s driven a big change in voting behavior. With Brett Kavanaugh having taken the place of Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, there are now five pro-life justices instead of four-and-a-half. If Ruth Bader Ginsburg (age 87) or Stephen Breyer (age 82) retires or dies in the next four years, a Trump presidency would install a sixth pro-life judge on the court and almost guarantee that Roe v. Wade gets overturned.
Social conservatives can practically taste victory at this point, and they’re voting like it. Social liberals are . . . not quite so single-minded. This is probably an underappreciated factor in the 2020 election.