Every cloud has a silver lining, and for Joe Biden the Supreme Court’s jettisoning of Roe v Wade certainly brings one.
Suddenly, the bickering moderate and leftist wings of the Democrat party are united, and they have a new casus belli.
They haven’t been this fired up since they buried their differences to oust Donald Trump on November 3, 2020.
You could hear it as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrat congresswoman, yelled through a megaphone outside the Supreme Court, ordering young supporters “into the streets” and to the ballot box.
Meanwhile, dollars from donors are pouring into Democrat coffers. Within minutes of the seismic ruling, fundraising emails started dropping in inboxes across the country.
One from Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat House Speaker, said: “It’s Nancy. By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news. NO ONE can sit this moment out. Please, help me defeat EVERY anti-choice Republican for what they’ve done to our country by rushing $3 to elect House Democrats.”
All of a sudden, people are no longer talking about 40-year high inflation and record petrol prices, or Mr Biden’s apparent inability to ride a bicycle.
Republicans can still expect to take back both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections in November, but the anticipated “red wave” is now facing headwinds.
In the most anti-abortion states Republican candidates will bask in their Roe v Wade victory ahead of the midterms. But other Republicans in swing states are, as one strategist put it, like the dog that caught the car.
With a clear majority of Americans supportive of Roe v Wade there are few votes to be gained by lauding its demise.
Many Republican candidates will spend the run-up to the midterms trying to steer their conversations with voters away from abortion, and back to the economy.
Notably, Donald Trump has been taking less credit for the decision than one might expect.
It was the three justices he nominated to the court who secured the end of Roe v Wade, but Mr Trump demurred, saying it was “God’s choice,” rather than his.
Privately, some Republicans are delighted at the outcome but less than happy at the timing, with less than five months to the midterms.
If that timing was a political.gif”>t to Mr Biden, allowing him to unite and motivate his disheartened party, then Justice Clarence Thomas put the cherry on top.
The court’s majority opinion said its decision on Roe v Wade would not affect other cases. But Justice Thomas, who was part of that majority, decided to also write a separate opinion, in which he declared the exact opposite.
He wrote: “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell.” The case of Griswold v Connecticut enshrined the right to contraception in 1965.
Lawrence v Texas in 2003 struck down laws penalising same-sex relationships, and Obergefell v Hodges in 2015 established the right to same-sex marriage.
Justice Thomas’s opinion appeared to be an invitation to bring cases to the Supreme Court challenging those precedents.
Democrats, including Mr Biden and Ms Pelosi, seized on it, telling supporters that such rights are no longer safe – unless enough Democrats are elected in November to pass laws to protect them.
That will be a constant refrain, from moderate and left-wing Democrats alike, in the run-up to the midterms.
The post How the Roe v Wade reversal could boost Joe Biden’s election chances appeared first on The Telegraph.
