On June 24, the US Supreme Court denied a constitutional right to an abortion, overturning its Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. I covered this and two other late June right-wing decisions by the court in an early July article.

When this article was written, the court was historically unpopular, but so was US President Joe Biden. I thought it unlikely abortion would help the Democrats in the November midterm elections, given Biden’s unpopularity and the high inflation.

But in the last month, Democrats have gained in the national House of Representatives popular vote and in the FiveThirtyEight Senate forecasts. In my July article, Republicans had a 2.0% national lead over Democrats, an 87% chance to win the house and a 55% chance to win the Senate in FiveThirtyEight poll averages and forecasts.

Now FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 60% chance to win the Senate, while Republicans still have an 80% chance to win the House. Democrats have a tiny 0.1% national lead over Republicans, their first lead since last November.

Biden is still unpopular with a 55.5% disapproval, 39.8% approval (net -15.7). But Democrats are doing far better than we would expect from Biden’s ratings.

There are still three months to go before the November 8 midterm elections, and Republicans could advance again. But at the moment, abortion appears to be helping Democrats, and recent economic data is likely to also help.

At these elections, all 435 house seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are up for election. Democrats won the house in 2020 by a 222-213 margin, and hold the Senate from a 50-50 tie on Vice President Kamala Harris’ casting vote. Twenty-one Republicans and 14 Democrats are up for election in the Senate.

The Democrats’ biggest triumph occurred at an August 2 referendum in Kansas. Republicans attempted to remove a right to an abortion in the Kansas state constitution by a referendum. In this case, a “no” vote preserved the abortion right, while a “yes” would have scrapped this right.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/us-democrats-gain-ground-before-midterm-elections-as-kansas-voters-reject-attempt-to-ban-abortion-187994