Ohio Democrats who are running for reelection next year in a state that is becoming increasingly red are investing heavily in the ballot campaign this November to permanently legalise abortion in Ohio.

They are campaigning for the amendment by knocking on doors and making phone calls in competitive districts, holding rallies, giving interviews, and blasting their Republican opponents for supporting the state’s six-week abortion restriction. The struggling candidates and the Ohio Democratic Party hope that, like many other Democrats in swing states since Roe v. Wade’s overturn, supporting abortion rights in 2023 will help them win in 2024.

It’s the popular thing to do, and it’s the correct thing to do. Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), whose seat is in the heart of Cincinnati, is lobbying for the bill because he believes it is the proper thing to do.

Senator Sherrod Brown has led phone banking efforts and brings up the issue at most campaign stops as he seeks reelection in the conservative-leaning state, and Representatives Marcy Kaptur and Emilia Sykes, both of whom appeared on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s list of most vulnerable “frontline” incumbents, have gone door-to-door for the initiative.

The outcome of the referendum and the margin of victory on November 7 will have a significant impact on campaign strategy and messaging for the Democratic Party in Ohio, six other swing states that are likely to place abortion on their ballots in 2018, and in national elections for president and Congress in 2020. Even though the elections are separated by a year, the campaign will also test whether vulnerable Democrats can convert public support for abortion rights into electoral successes.

Attendance has been really high so far. With over 300,000 early votes cast as of October 24th, turnout is expected to greatly outpace the last off-year election in 2021.

President of the National Right to Life Committee Carol Tobias told anti-abortion activists in a webcast on Tuesday night that Democratic candidates are being informed that support for abortion is the “magic bullet” that will help them win. To paraphrase, “so stopping this measure in Ohio is going to bring those efforts not definitely to a halt, but it’s going to at least make everybody stop and think that maybe this isn’t quite the issue that they thought it was.”

Republicans in the area have seen Ohio swing to their side in recent elections, and they are sure that they can defeat the abortion rights amendment this year and shift the focus of the 2024 election away from the amendment and onto more favourable topics for the GOP, such as President Joe Biden’s fitness for office, the economy, and crime.

The last test before 2024 of whether abortion will continue to hobble the GOP is underway, and Republican leaders in Ohio, including Governor Mike DeWine, Senate hopeful and current Secretary of State Frank LaRose, and others, are pouring political capital into the fight.

Attendance has been really high so far. With over 300,000 early votes cast as of October 24th, turnout is expected to greatly outpace the last off-year election in 2021.

Although abortion opponents have admitted they are behind in funding, ad spending, and polling, other conservatives have discounted the concept that the outcome of the Ohio referendum will indicate the results of close contests in 2024.

“I don’t think this is going to be the predictor that the left thinks it will be,” said Ohio Republican Party Chair Alex Triantafilou. To paraphrase, “[2024] will be a referendum on Joe Biden, as these presidential elections always are.”

Once considered a political barometer, Ohio has gone solidly Republican over the past decade, with Trump having captured the state twice and winning by 9 points in 2020. Progressive groups on both the local and national levels see the upcoming referendum as a chance to flip that tide, claiming that a victory would show voters and groups on both sides that Ohio isn’t a lost cause for Democrats.

A lot of the professional political class is looking at Ohio and thinking, ‘It’s not really winnable anymore,'” said Matt Caffrey, the Ohio-based organising director for Swing Left. “And yes, defeats have hammered us down. However, this referendum is an important step because it shows the rest of the country that America is not a “deep red hellhole” and is instead a place worth fighting for.

With this in mind, a coalition of progressive advocacy groups and the Ohio Democratic Party initially attempted to have an abortion rights initiative included on the ballot in 2024 in the hopes that it would increase Democratic Party support and fundraising. A six-week, near-total prohibition in the state has been halted by judges, but in the end they sided with medical groups who insisted on proceeding this year out of fear that the ban could be reinstalled before voters had a chance to weigh in.

Even though there were benefits “both tactically and politically” to having the measure appear on the ballot in 2024, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters and other leaders were convinced that “Ohio women shouldn’t have to wait to have access to their fundamental constitutional rights to their reproductive health care freedom for when it’s politically convenient.”

Since the party has put so much work into getting the referendum on the ballot and sponsoring voter turnout campaigns, Walters has come to recognise multiple advantages to holding the referendum in an off-year.

It’s not that we can’t multitask, but as she put it, “it can be harder to kind of break through with your message the more crowded the ballot gets, and the more spending you have from various candidates and other ballot initiatives.”

Many Democrats in red and purple states now would not publicly endorse abortion rights even a few years ago. But the left’s outrage following Roe v. Wade’s overturn emboldened abortion rights ballot measures, which last year won over independent and moderate Republican voters across the Midwest, Great Plains, and Appalachia.

The longest-serving woman in Congress, Kaptur expressed concern in 2017 that liberals may lose conservative voters if they prioritised abortion rights. To counter an August vote that would have made it more difficult to safeguard abortion rights, she conducted repeated door-to-door canvasses across northwest Ohio. She also plans to canvass with local Democratic clubs in the days leading up to the election in support of the referendum in November to enshrine those protections in the state Constitution.

Sykes filmed films for the Ohio Democratic Party in support of Issue 1, canvassed and phone banked, and will speak at a Planned Parenthood rally for the proposal the weekend before Election Day. She won a tough fight in 2022 to represent the Akron district formerly held by Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan.

In an interview, Sykes remarked, “I used to be one of the frustrated Democrats hoping to hear more from our candidates about why we should have complete control of our own bodies.” But in recent years I’ve been heartened by a dramatic shift in Democrats’ openness to discussing reproductive rights access.

After successfully flipping his district in southern Ohio last November as a first-year representative, Landsman is now working with Swing Left to increase their voter turnout. In an echo of the winning arguments Michigan Democrats used in last year’s referendum campaign, he told AWN that he has been able to connect with more conservative residents by arguing that abortion rights are vital to the state’s economy as well as individual families.

He said, “It’s about protecting the growth that we’re seeing in Ohio,” and warned that if the measure fails, “we’re going to see people start to leave and or just not come here — whether those are individuals or businesses” because “people just don’t want to raise a family in a state where they don’t have all their freedoms,” and “businesses don’t want to invest in a state where they can’t attract the talent they need.”