Background

On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to privacy in regard to abortion with the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. This overturned the fifty year precedent set by the 1973 case Roe Vs. Wade, which stated that women have a constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability.

The Dobbs decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito, was leaked in May of 2022, causing an uproar among activists on both sides of this issue. The leak became a reality on June 24th, 2022 when the Supreme Court officially ruled in favor of Dobbs. The official decision caused many states’ “trigger laws” to take immediate effect, criminalizing abortion without exceptions. Other states controlled by Republicans adopted similar laws.

Since the Dobbs decision, abortion has been largely an electoral liability for Republicans and an asset for Democrats. Many abortion related ballot measures have been on put before voters in a variety of states. The pro-choice side has won in every state, including Republican states like Kentucky, Kansas, and Montana. Further, pro-choice governors won re-election in Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and other states.

Michigan, being a state won by Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, is a lean Democratic swing state. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has prided herself on being a pro-choice governor and advocate for abortion rights. Michigan had a trigger law in effect from the moment Dobbs was decided, which was later overturned by Governor Whitmer. Among other things, abortion rights were put on the ballot that November. In the 2022 election, Whitmer was solidly re-elected and abortion rights were codiffied into the state constitution of Michigan. A swing state with a pro-choice governor and abortion ballot measure in a midterm election after Roe was overturned was the perfect state to study when doing this analysis.

Previous Literature

Kirzinger et al (2022) conducted a poll to study the effect of Dobbs on voting behavior. They concluded that the overturning of Roe is a highly motivating reason for young people and first time voters. They also found that a majority of voters were either dissatisfied or angry about Dobbs. Similarly, Booth et al (2022) concluded that youth turnout was exceptionally high in 2022, and their biggest priority was abortion rights. Sommer et al (2023) found that women and Democrats were more likely to register to vote after the decision was released.

Theory and Hypotheses

Abortion access is a tangible issue that many voters across party lines feel the effect of. This is especially true for women and young people. The aspect of “taking away” a right is also seen as an infringement of basic constitutional freedoms for some libertarian-leaning conservatives.

Therefore, the following are my hypotheses:

H1: Voter registration will increase among women in the aftermath of the Dobbs leak and final decision. H2: Voter registration will increase among those under the age of 25 in the aftermath of the Dobbs leak and final decision. H3: Voter registration will increase among women under the age of 25 in the aftermath of the Dobbs leak and final decision. H4: Controlling for age and gender, voters who registered after the Dobbs leak and final decision were more likely to turnout than those who registered in the four weeks prior to the Dobbs leak.

Methodology and Results

Registration

Gender

The above graph shows the overall registration numbers for the 16 weeks studied. The first line represents the Dobbs leak on May 2nd, and the second line represents the final Dobbs decision on June 24th. Registrations increased after the leak, and increased again after the final decision.

In 2018, registration numbers were much lower than 2022, making it difficult to compare directly. The highest registration week in 2018 is about as high as the lowest week in 2022.though a problematic jump in registrations is present from weeks 13 through 15.

The above graph shows the raw number of female registrations over the course of 16 weeks. While an increase in registrations can be seen in the inter-period between the leak and decision, the increase in registrations becomes much more clear after the Dobbs decision became official.

While not displayed here, it can be seen that women were outnumbered by men until the decision became official in week 12. The percentage of women registrations overall increased from 49% the week of the leak, to 50% the week of the decision, and reaching 53% two weeks after the decision. This shows moderately strong evidence for Hypothesis 1.

Age

To segment the population into different age groups, I conducted an age_4 analysis. This separated those under the age of 25 into group 1, those between 26 and 40 years old into group 2, those 41 to 65 into group 4, and those 65 years and older into group 4. Here is a sample of that code:

This shows moderate evidence for hypothesis 1.

mi_voterfile <- mi_voterfile %>%
  mutate(age_4 = 0) %>%
  mutate(age_4 = replace(age_4, age <= 25, 1)) %>%
  mutate(age_4 = replace(age_4, age >= 26 & age <= 40, 2)) %>%
  mutate(age_4 = replace(age_4, age >= 41 & age <= 65, 3)) %>%
  mutate(age_4 = replace(age_4, age > 65, 4))

The above graph displays the registrations for those between the ages of 18 and 25 in the 16 weeks studied. In the period between the Dobbs leak and the final decision, registrations modestly increased. In the weeks after Dobbs, the increase is much stronger as registrations skyrocket. This is strong evidence for hypothesis 2.

As can be seen by the past two graphs, young women show a clear increase in registrations from the Dobbs leak, and most impactfully, the post-Dobbs decision period. This shows strong evidence for hypothesis 3.

Turnout

Now that it is clear that Dobbs had an impact on voter registration among women and young people, let’s examine if these newly registered voters were excited about the 2022 general election. Turnout is key to understanding if the Dobbs effect had a tangible impact on election results or just registration.

A logistic regression was used to examine the differences in turnout among different age groups, genders, and time of registration. The model used is outlined below:

model <- glm(vote2022 ~ GENDER + factor(period) + factor(age_4), data = joint, family = "binomial")

The period is defined in reference to the Dobbs decision and the leak. Gender and age are also taken into consideration.

## 
## Call:
## glm(formula = vote2022 ~ GENDER + factor(period) + factor(age_4), 
##     family = "binomial", data = joint)
## 
## Deviance Residuals: 
##     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max  
## -1.6957  -1.1422   0.8193   1.1245   1.5227  
## 
## Coefficients:
##                      Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)    
## (Intercept)         -0.782791   0.012686  -61.71   <2e-16 ***
## GENDERF              0.510101   0.008968   56.88   <2e-16 ***
## factor(period)inter  0.151230   0.011395   13.27   <2e-16 ***
## factor(period)post   0.398529   0.012503   31.88   <2e-16 ***
## factor(age_4)2       0.477037   0.011099   42.98   <2e-16 ***
## factor(age_4)3       0.699370   0.012058   58.00   <2e-16 ***
## factor(age_4)4       1.040753   0.016812   61.91   <2e-16 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
## (Dispersion parameter for binomial family taken to be 1)
## 
##     Null deviance: 290632  on 210020  degrees of freedom
## Residual deviance: 280795  on 210014  degrees of freedom
## AIC: 280809
## 
## Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 4

As seen in the regression analysis above, each level of the independent variables are significant.

Gender: Seeing as the coefficient is positive, females from the entire 16 weeks studied were 1.66 times, or 66% more likely, to turnout than men, the control group (exponentiating the coefficient).

Period of Registration: The four week pre-Dobbs leak is the control group. As the coefficient associated with the period between the leak and the final decision is positive, those who registered in this inter-period were 16.3% more likely to turn out than the control. Furthermore, the coefficient associated with the post-Dobbs decision period is even higher with these registrants being 48.9% more likely to turnout than the control group. There is strong evidence for Hypothesis 4

Age: As age groups increase, so too does the likelihood of voting. This is a trend witnessed around the country and has held true for many years. Therefore, age groups were included as a control for the other variables.

Conclusions

The Dobbs effect is something that has loomed large over electoral politics for the past year. As many have hypothesized, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade has had a significant impact on voters’ decision making process in the 2022 general election.

If all went as predicted, the 2022 midterm elections would have been a ‘red wave.’ It is safe to say that anything but that happened - largely due to the backlash from the Dobbs decision. People were motivated to register and vote in the next election because of this unpopular decision. Pro-choice governors were re-elected in uphill battles, abortion rights were codified in many conservative states, and Republicans suffered a humiliatingly underwhelming performance.

There is evidence for all four of the aformentioned hypotheses. First, voter registrations did increase among women in the aftermath of the Dobbs leak, and especially in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision. Additionally, voter registration did increase among young voters under 25. Combined, women under 25 had an increase in registrations as well. As for the question of if these new voters turned out - the answer is a resounding yes. Newly registered people turned out at higher levels than those registered before the study period, and women registered in this period turned out at higher levels than men.

As voter registrations increased among women and those under 25, what is more significant from this analysis is that these new voters turned out by much higher numbers than other groups. Studies show that young people who vote in their first possible election tend to vote more frequently later in their life. It is undoubtable that these new voters will experience the same thing. The Dobbs effect has directly impacted these young women’s voting habits for the rest of their lives.