Current Affairs Of Pakistan & World: How abortion could shape 2028

How abortion could shape 2028

Sep 01, 2026

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THE CATCH-UP

Abortion is simmering as an issue in the background of this year’s midterm elections. But the new 2028 Democratic primary calendar could put it back toward the top of the list in the next presidential race, six years after the Supreme Court struck down its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.

Reproductive rights are likely to feature heavily in candidates’ voter pitches in South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia, four Democratic strategists working in the early states and two Democratic senators representing them told Playbook.

“When you put Virginia, New Hampshire, Michigan, etc., in the early calendar, those are for sure places where this issue and the voters who care about this issue are going to over-index,” said Jesse Ferguson, a veteran Democratic strategist with ties to Virginia.

Half a decade since the high court’s Dobbs decision, the right to abortion remains popular among a majority of U.S. adults. And the six early states have high rates of support for legalized abortion, according to data collected by the Public Religion Research Institute. Support for legal access to the procedure in all or most cases is at 74 percent in both Nevada and New Hampshire, 63 percent in Virginia, 62 percent in Michigan, 57 percent in South Carolina and 53 percent in New Mexico, PRRI found.

“The geography of the 2028 primary will make reproductive freedom especially relevant,” said Renee Harvey, a veteran Democratic strategist working in first-in-the-nation South Carolina, the only early state with a six-week abortion ban. “The 2028 hopefuls are going to have to face the primary voters, and they're going to be campaigning in a state where the consequences of Dobbs — they're not hypothetical here.”

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Abortion has cropped up in this year’s midterm elections across swing states and districts, including those in the early 2028 states. Four states this year — including Nevada and Virginia — are set to vote on a ballot initiatives to add the right to abortion to their constitutions, forcing vulnerable GOP candidates to engage with an issue they’d rather not touch while Democrats believe the inclusion of the measures on the ballot could boost base turnout.

In Maine’s critical Senate race, the Democratic group Affordable Maine has spent more than $1 million on ads attacking GOP Sen. Susan Collins for voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the majority in the Dobbs decision. And the procedure is core to Wisconsin Democrats, who say they’ll expand reproductive freedom if the party achieves a trifecta in the state.

“I suspect as we are going into the presidential, this is going to be still a topic of conversation,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who was reelected months after the 2022 Dobbs decision, told Playbook in an interview. She noted that Nevada held a ballot measure in 2024 to codify the right to abortion, which passed by 64 percent.

Presidential candidates focusing their messages on affordability may also find a cross-section with abortion, said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.). “When you talk to people about affordability and try to exclude from that discussion their own right to make a decision about if and when to have a family, you are really demonstrating how out of touch you are,” she told Playbook.

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6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. MORE IRAN STRIKES: The U.S. launched new strikes on Iranian targets today, its second round this week that marks a new escalation in the conflict after a weekslong pause in fighting. U.S. Central Command said in a social media post that the strikes followed attempted Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and American servicemembers in the region. More from POLITICO’s Cheyanne M. Daniels

2. TRADING SPACES: “Why Trump's trade war with Canada is poised to drag past the midterms,” by POLITICO’s Daniel Desrochers and colleagues: “Trump administration officials are united in the posture that the U.S. has the upper hand in the trade war, and risks exponentially less economic fallout than Canada. And they are signaling that the Canadian government, led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, will have to be the one to offer concessions to restart talks. Privately, Trump officials are telling industry groups that the offer Canadian negotiators rejected on Aug. 21 is now moot, and they are no longer willing to make the same concessions on steel and aluminum tariffs, in particular.”

The view from Ottawa: Canadian officials have drawn a red line at key U.S. demands, but Carney still sees a path back to negotiating — if Trump will take it. Carney told reporters today any deal with the U.S. “must” recognize Canadian sovereignty, per POLITICO’s Mickey Djuric. “When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions — we can have those discussions,” Carney said.

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3. MAILING IT IN: A Postal Service official is blowing the whistle on what they allege is a “secretive, rushed” effort by the agency to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive order to federalize mail-in voting despite being blocked by a federal judge, NYT’s Chris Cameron reports. The official filed a whistleblower disclosure released today by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who told reporters that “the main takeaway for me is that the Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans.” A USPS official declined to comment on the record to NYT.

4. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING: CivAI, a nonprofit that says its aim is to educate the public about AI’s dangers and capabilities, is showing lawmakers and staffers from dozens of congressional offices demos showing AI’s privacy-busting prowess in recent months, and the results are freaking them out, POLITICO’s Alfred Ng reports. “Besides building troves of personal information gleaned from commercial databases, the dossiers offer advice on potential ways to blackmail, coerce or stalk the individual in question, according to four Republican and eight Democratic staffers who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.”

5. ALL GAS, NO BREAKS: High gas prices as a result of Trump’s war with Iran have caused issues for Republicans for months — and now the pain from a near-record high cost for diesel is about to set in just two months ahead of the midterms, POLITICO’s Mike Soraghan and Grace Yarrow report. That’s especially tough on the GOP since rising diesel prices have a higher impact on rural areas and blue-collar businesses before the rest of the economy.

6. DATA DEAL? “‘An imperfect solution’ gains traction in data center fight,” by POLITICO’s Kinnia Cheuk: “Community benefit agreements are increasingly appearing in state strategies for handling the data center boom. In recent months, three Rust Belt governors — Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Illinois’ JB Pritzker and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer — have called on project developers to enter into legal agreements with communities that can cement pollution limits, hiring commitments and local investment promises.”

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TALK OF THE TOWN

WILD RIDE — “He brought a guillotine to D.C. He didn’t expect to get arrested,” by WaPo’s Ben Conarck: “Philan Le acknowledges he drove a guillotine to the nation’s capital in the bed of his pickup truck and parked it near the U.S. Capitol. But he didn’t anticipate, he said in an interview with The Washington Post, that the display would attract so much attention — or a criminal charge.”

WEEKEND WEDDING — Rachele Fortier, Pennsylvania state director of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, and Eric Rosso, chief of staff to Philadelphia City Council Minority Leader Kendra Brooks, got married on Sunday in Las Vegas. The couple met while working on a Philadelphia City Council campaign and began dating in 2019. Pic

TRANSITIONS — Jessica Reis is joining Tavern as head of research and strategy. She previously worked at Bully Pulpit International and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. … Molly Fogarty is now joining Brunswick Group as a partner. She was previously at Nestle. … Julie Peng has joined Snell & Wilmer’s Washington, D.C., office as counsel in the Natural Resources Practice Group. She previously worked at Lucid Motors.

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