The sad part is anyone believing this is the number one issue/problem facing the nation.
The title of this thread is not " The #1 Issue of 2024." It is "The Defining Issue of 2024."
By that I mean abortion rights will define the results of the 2024 elections. Notice that in the five states where abortion rights were placed as a ballot question before the voters, the voters turned out in large numbers to vote in favor of abortion rights. Abortion rights get people moving. They motivate people to get involved, and to get out the door to vote.
That motivation did not exist when Roe v. Wade was the law of the land. People already had abortion rights. They needed other reasons to get out and vote. But when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson, millions of voters who want abortion rights are rising to get them back.
Since the Republican Party tends to oppose abortion rights and the Democratic party tends to support abortion rights, this is good news for Democrats. It's like a free gift to them from the Supreme Court.
Every campaign looks for ways to motivate their voters to get to the polls and vote. For Democrats, abortion rights does the job. It does the job because more American voters support abortion rights than oppose them. The majority of Americans want abortion rights. And where those rights are threatened, they turn out in wining numbers to vote to get them back.
That turnout has knock-on effects on all other ballot items. If you are a Democratic candidate for any office, it's good news for you that people who support abortion rights are already highly motivated to vote. You don't have to work hard to get them to the polls. You need only make sure they know that you hold the same abortion rights views they do. After they check the box on the abortion rights question, it's an easy matter to check the box for the Democratic candidates too.
Abortion rights are the defining issue of 2024 because it is #1. It is the defining issue because it is bringing people to the polls who will likely also vote to return control of the US House to Democrats, keep the US Senate in Democratic majority hands, and keep the White House in Democratic hands as well.
You can see this in Ohio today. The news reports now say Republicans expect to lose the Issue 1 election. The Ohio Secretary of State is a Republican who has campaigned fiercely in favor of Issue 1. He is a staunch pro-life candidate who speaks against abortion rights. He is also a candidate for U.S. Senate. Now tied irrevocably to a losing issue in Ohio (we'll know for sure tonight), he faces a highly organized and newly energized base of people who strongly support abortion rights.
These people were not organized and energized in red-state Ohio before the Supreme Court overturned Roe. But they are now, and that's a big problem for Republicans.