Dems Won Independent Votes on Abortion; 'Women Went Crazy': Obama Official

After several surprising wins for Democrats Tuesday night, a former campaign manager for President Barack Obama said that the left can thank the issue of abortion for driving voter turnout and swaying independent voters in this year's midterms.

Jim Messina, who worked on Obama's campaign in 2012, told Fox News in an interview Wednesday morning that a large portion of Democratic women voters were driven to the polls out of "anger" in states that had reproductive rights on the ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn federal abortion protections this summer.

"Abortion is becoming the issue that is driving turnout," Messina told Fox.

He added that based on several exit polls, Democrats won over independent voters as well, which "no poll saw coming."

"And it's because these women just went crazy," he said.

According to exit polling conducted by CNN and Edison Research, 49 percent of independent voters chose Democratic candidates for the House on Tuesday, while 47 percent voted for Republicans. That data shows a major shift in the independent vote from the last four midterm elections where swing voters had typically sided against the party of the White House.

Messina also used Michigan as a prime example of abortion impacting the ballot this fall, where Democrats ended up flipping the state legislature and winning a few key congressional districts that Republicans had coveted. Voters also reelected Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat whose campaign focused on preserving abortion rights in the state.

According to a report from Politico, Democrats now have full power over Michigan's government for the first time in 40 years.

Michigan voters also passed an amendment on Tuesday that adds the right to an abortion and the use of contraceptives to the state's constitution. According to CNN's exit polls, 59 percent of independent women voted in favor of the amendment.

Messina told Fox News that the momentum behind abortion rights this year is a sign that it will be a "defining issue" in the 2024 presidential election, and said that Democrats will "absolutely" start to pass referendums on reproductive rights in states that have not already.

"Partially because you have to now, state by state—that's what Dobbs did," Messina said in the interview. "Second of all, it's good politics. And third of all, it is proof that this is going to be the defining issue in the presidential election."

It may still be too early to say for certain that women voters were driven by the issue of abortion this election, says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. However, Walsh told Newsweek that exit polls do show that the issue of abortion was almost equal with the economy for some voters on Tuesday, and echoed Messina that Michigan voters were likely driven by abortion being on the ballot.

"We're talking about a right that was taken away, which is very different than, you know, fighting for something that you've never had," Walsh said, adding that women voters were "angry about losing a right that [they've] had for decades."

"Women were feeling like their daughters would have less access to health care than they did," she said.

Walsh added that she will be watching if the issue of abortion could be a motivator for women candidates in 2024 as well, given that the Dobbs decision had come too late in the election cycle to impact candidate filings for the 2022 midterms.

"We saw an energizing of women as voters, but we didn't have an opportunity to see whether that would turn into an energizer of women as candidates," Walsh told Newsweek. "And I think we might well see that in the next cycle."