Source: Politics<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden carried Colorado by 14 points in 2020. He blew now-former President Donald Trump out of the water in Washington, winning by nearly 20 points. And after early-cycle chatter about New Mexico being a sleeper swing state, it wasn\u2019t close: Biden 54, Trump 44.<\/p>\n
Yet in a political environment as brutal as this year\u2019s for Democrats, even states where the party recently trotted out double-digit victories statewide are anything but safe bets \u2014 just look at Virginia, which Biden carried by 10 points in 2020 and which promptly flipped to the GOP in last year\u2019s state elections.<\/p>\n
But Friday\u2019s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade<\/a> could halt the GOP\u2019s blue-state advance, Democrats argue, by waking up at least some of the coalition that they rode to blowout wins as recently as two or four years ago. Republicans have this year made campaign overtures in reliably blue states like Colorado, Washington, Oregon and New Mexico, all states that have recently given Democrats double-digit margins of victory \u2014 and all states where abortion is legal and keeping Roe v. Wade was broadly popular. <\/p>\n \u201cIn New Mexico, I think this is going to be responded [to with] a clear call to action by women and men, by voters across that spectrum, who might have been \u2014 in the midterms \u2014 more lethargic,\u201d said New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a former chair of the Democratic Governors Association who is up for reelection this year<\/p>\n Many are quick to note that the long- or even medium-term political effects of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision remain unclear. And few Democrats are ready to say that the Supreme Court decision alone could flip their dire-looking political fortunes in some of the country\u2019s most hotly contested elections.<\/p>\n But a number of Democrats do think that the return of abortion policy to the states could constrain an expanding battlefield, which has only gotten more favorable to Republicans as the midterms have gotten closer.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a long time, many voters didn’t believe there was a threat to the status quo \u2014 legal access to abortion,\u201d said Marshall Cohen, the political director of the DGA. \u201cEven in bluer states where there are protections in state law, Republican candidates\u2019 extremism is uniquely off-putting to a broad swath of voters, not just Democrats, but independents, and moderate Republicans as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats immediately went on offense following the decision on Friday, broadly blasting Republican candidates as extremists who are out of line with popular opinion. They raised the specter of a nationwide ban \u2014 something that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said was \u201cpossible\u201d<\/a> \u2014 as a reason why Democratic-leaning voters can\u2019t risk leaving the fold now, even in reliably blue states that have already codified abortion protections into law.<\/p>\n Even before Friday\u2019s ruling, Democrats were using the looming Supreme Court opinion to try to create some distance between themselves and their Republican opponents.<\/p>\n Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who last won reelection in 2016 by 18 points, went up with a TV ad last week targeting her leading Republican challenger. \u201cWhat\u2019s at risk voting for Mitch McConnell\u2019s handpicked candidate for Senate, Tiffany Smiley? Everything,\u201d the ad\u2019s narrator intones<\/a>, saying it would be \u201crisking women\u2019s reproductive health care.\u201d<\/p>\n The same is true in Colorado, where both Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet both could be facing serious Republican challengers in November.<\/p>\n “We can’t let the court have the last word. If they do, our daughters will have fewer rights than their mothers and their grandmothers had,\u201d Bennet told POLITICO. \u201cWe need to protect a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, regardless of where she lives. We have to elect pro-choice Democrats this November who will protect a woman\u2019s right to choose.\u201d<\/p>\n