Key Point: “North Carolina is one of the few states in the Southeast that still offers some access to abortion. Hundreds of women from surrounding states have poured into its clinics since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. But the outcome of a handful of state legislative races this fall could restrict abortion access further or halt it altogether, there as well as in several other purple states. These far-down-the-ballot contests usually don’t register on the national radar, compared to the battle for control of Congress — but they could have a profound effect on the post-Roe abortion landscape.”

Politico: These way-down-ballot races will decide whether abortion is legal for millions

• In North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and his veto stand in the way of new abortion restrictions in the state: Republicans are just two state Senate seats and three state House seats away from achieving veto-proof majorities there, a high-water mark for legislative power that Democrats only broke in 2018.
• “The vote is so close that any one of these districts across our state could make the difference in whether women’s reproductive health care is protected or not,” Cooper continued. “It’s that stark.”
• That contrast is what had Mary Wills Bode, a 34-year-old first-time state legislative candidate, knocking on door after door here on a sweltering morning to explain “just how high the stakes are” in state legislative races like hers, a mantra she repeated to several voters. Bode is running in a newly drawn state Senate seat that folds in the north Raleigh suburbs and parts of a rural county, a district President Joe Biden won by a point in 2020, against Republican E.C. Sykes, who lost a bid for Secretary of State in 2020.
• In North Carolina, restrictions on abortions have already tightened, after a federal judge allowed a 20-week ban to be reinstated, once the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And states around North Carolina are going further to restrict access. Last week, Tennessee outlawed any abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest and this week, South Carolina’s state House approved a law that would also ban any abortion, but it would include exemptions for rape or incest.
• “People are seeing what is happening across our country,” Bode said, “and they’re worried because they see themselves in these stories.”

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