Ohio Ballot Issue 1 Megathread (August 8)

[Skill and Chance]

Does anyone else think that "No" will win tonight, but that the yes vote on a pro-choice abortion law in November will fail?

If it was being held in November 2024 with Trump turnout, maybe, but odd year turnout favors the left position, especially on a social issue, so I expect it to pass. 

However, if it's close-ish and OH keeps getting more conservative I could see it eventually getting repealed in a presidential year down the line.  OH R's could schedule a pro-life referendum on R presidential primary day in a year when the D primary is uncontested.

[Skill and Chance]

I'm guessing that most "Yes" (and probably most "no") voters were motivated by/only thinking about abortion when voting but this bill would've gone further. Had "yes" won, it would've meant the adaptation of Florida's horrid system which would've been a thorn in the side of democracy. Interestingly though the county map so far reminds me a bit of the 2008 presidential election map but with lopsided margins.

I noted yesterday that there were prominent conservative commutators outside of the formal political system who were pushing hard for 'No,' specifically cause they didn't want to effectively eliminate a limited government handbrake.

It's interesting that Yes only has about half of Trump's margin in many rural counties.

[Skill and Chance]

I guessed a 50-60% No victory and it looks like it has been just that. Clearly enough people to see it for the power grab it was, but still evidence of a state which is becoming increasingly inflexibly conservative on the whole, with huge numbers voting immovably in lockstep with the GOP because "muh liberals". The fact that the end result was narrower than the Kansas abortion referendum is something I find quite telling. Is Ohio possibly now the more right-leaning state of the two?

On social issues?  Almost surely!

Keep in mind there are almost surely more people who didn't want to make it harder to pass a referendum even though they are more pro-life than the November amendment than vice versa.  The ballots didn't literally say "abortion" this time around.  

[Skill and Chance]

This was a really stupid ass idea. This sort of thing would always run behind an abortion ban, so what's the point? Did they seriously think they'd actually win over enough pro-choice voters to the Yes side?

No, they simply hoped (and this really was their "plan", I'm not making this up) that enough voters would not be paying attention and that the electorate would be strongly old and republican leaning.

That's still total Galaxy Brain sh!t. Republicans continue to fail to understand how social media works amongst other things.

I'm reminded of the Doomers who insisted that Trump's Postal Service sabotage would destroy Biden's chances because loads of Democrats would wait until the last days to mail in their ballots and no one would pay attention to the news about it and Democratic GOTV operations would completely ignore it because "voters are stupid." And then it got huge publicity and coverage and that didn't happen!

They thought cause given that they did succeed in passing such measure in FL , it would be successful in OH too .

https://twitter.com/astrohxncho/status/1689055847442522120?s=20

Note that it passed in Florida, in 2006 of all years, cause the initiative process in the years immediately preceding it was actually being abused with things people didn't think needed to be on the ballot. And since then it hasn't exactly stopped popular liberal initiatives from passing.

Yes, this was from a different era so not really comparable.  Also the most aggressive initiatives were coming from the right back then IIRC and then there was just altogether crazy stuff like creating a constitutional obligation to build a monorail(!) between Orlando and Miami.

There are 2 states that have actually passed restrictions in recent years, but they were both on narrower terms than what Ohio R's proposed:

In 2022, AZ voters passed a 60% threshold that applies specifically to initiatives that would raise taxes.

In 2016, CO voters raised the threshold for passage of constitutional amendments from 50% to 55%.

[Skill and Chance]

DailyKos made this map which shows the margin difference between the ballot issue results so far and the 2020 presidential results:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1689327543285846022

Appalachian far eastern areas stand out. 

[Skill and Chance]

Would be ironic if the abortion amendment passes but is later repealed with less than 60% of the vote.  The legislature could schedule an attempted repeal on an R-only primary day if they really wanted to.

[Skill and Chance]

I really don't understand Republican obsession with abortion laws. Especially since this caused that much backlash. Is that really the hill they want to die upon?

Answer: Nationalization of politics.

White Evangelical Protestants are the ones who actually like and support this policy. Catholic and non-White opinion is predicated and influenced by other factors that split the groups into unequal sizes. For example Louisiana rural White Catholics have similar opinions to their Evangelical neighbors, but the same cannot be said of northeastern Irish descendants. The sum total of these groups though oppose bans at the national level, even if individual subgroups may have differing opinions.
 And obviously this is before we talk about Jewish, agnostic, non-religious, and all the other smaller denominations that usually are fierce opponents.

White Evangelical Protestants are almost entirely a GOP electorate. As seen on the map, they make up a majority - or something very close to it - of the Republican vote in at least 15 states.  When taking into account other areas where they have significant influence, like North Florida and East Texas, we come to something very close to half the electorates of the National party: Congressmen, Senators, and Electoral Votes.

A smarter, or more importantly a less nationalized system would see the GOP in the Evangelical areas support bans. They are following their electorate and the normal political channels of influence. Reminder that many of these states had referendums on abortion bans pre-2022, to set up trigger-laws that would go into effect if Roe was overturned. And they passed. In the rest of the country, the majority, they would oppose such efforts, or limit the policy to restrictions at a level acceptable to their state's electorate. But because identity politics is nationalized, and the Evangelical identity has such a presence within the GOP, they can keep pushing and won't face any internal party opposition.

This isn't quite right.  In abortion referenda in recent times, the only places where pro-life is matching or exceeding Generic R are super Catholic and/or majority-minority, e.g. Mercer County, OH, Imperial County, CA, Wayne County, MI.  Louisiana has thus far been the only state where pro-life ran ahead of Trump statewide.  Yes, pro-life is winning the rural Evangelical belt, but often with dramatically reduced margins compared to generic R.  Consider that the results in Michigan and Kentucky weren't that different, and Kansas was "left" of Michigan! 

*Some of this gap may be attributable to no being the pro-choice vote in KS and KY, while no was the pro-life vote in MI.  However, this would make Louisiana stand out even more as yes was the pro-life vote there. 

[Skill and Chance]

Anecdotally I always found that there was some silent reluctance towards the pro-life movement even in conservative evangelical circles. Not so much that these people supported abortion rights, but more so that they didn't see what the hell it had to do with Christianity which is what they were there to practice and study. They just keep silent about it because they don't want some church lady to start sobbing about how they're killing the babies again.

From a literal as possible sola scriptura perspective, it’s actually somewhat harder to make the pro-life case. There are some verses in Exodus that read pretty ambivalent about miscarriages and there’s also never a word for word condemnation of abortion to be found in.  The more you are willing to consider church tradition and associated writings, the stronger the pro-life case gets (Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas explicitly condemn it when interpreting Thou Shalt Not Kill for gentile converts).