With abortion on the ballot, Democrats win big in Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky

WASHINGTON —  On Tuesday, voters in Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and a handful of other states went to the polls to make their voices heard. Analysts said the results would be a test of how Democrats might fare in next year’s presidential election.

The results are in — and they offer good news for Democrats and abortion rights.

Hello, friends. I’m Erin B. Logan, a reporter covering Congress for the L.A. Times. This week, we are going to discuss abortion rights, Democrats and their leader, President Biden.

Is everything about abortion?

For years, abortion rights supporters warned that electing Republicans to Congress and the White House would eventually result in a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court that overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 case that protected access to the medical procedure. They were right to worry: Last year, the court did just that, returning the question of abortion rights to voters in states across the country.

Democrats and their allies have fought back, slamming Republicans for backing abortion bans without exceptions for survivors of rape and incest, prohibitions that are deeply unpopular among voters in both parties. Abortion rights groups and their allies have pushed for new state laws and state constitutional protections for the procedure. In many cases, these groups have used California-style ballot measures to take their case directly to voters.

When a 10-year-old Ohio girl had to cross state lines to terminate her pregnancy last summer, attracting national headlines, activists in that state mobilized to get a ballot measure to enshrine protections in the state constitution. Republicans there tried to kneecap that effort through another ballot measure that would have required a 60% supermajority to amend the state’s constitution. But the GOP-backed measure failed, making way for the abortion rights proposal to succeed. On Tuesday, Ohioans approved a constitutional amendment to protect a person’s right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.”

Democrats also saw wins in Virginia, where they took control of the state assembly and protected their narrow majority in the state Senate. Incumbent Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his party had hoped to ban most abortions after 15 weeks, but Democrats effectively blocked that plan by expanding their ranks.

Democrats in Kentucky also saw gains. Andy Beshear, who ran ads on abortion rights in the deep-red state, will stay in the governor’s residence.

But while Democrats won big on Tuesday, storm clouds are on the horizon for the leader of the Democratic party.

Bad news for Biden?

Although Democrats performed well on Tuesday, it’s apparent Biden has become increasingly unpopular, even within his party.

For the first time in his presidency, a majority of California voters disapprove of Biden’s job performance, as support for him has dropped sharply among major Democratic-leaning groups, a new poll shows, Times writer David Lauter reported Wednesday. The drop has come heavily from Biden’s fellow Democrats and, to a lesser extent, from the state’s nonpartisan voters.

These findings are similar to a CNN survey conducted in recent weeks by national polling firm SSRS. The poll found that former President Trump leads Biden 49% to 45% among registered voters in a hypothetical rematch. Fifty-one percent of voters nationwide said they would never back Biden and 48% said they would never support Trump.

The election is still one year away, but these results, which come as Trump is fending off criminal and civil trials in multiple states on allegations of mishandling classified records, attempting to overturn the 2020 election and more, do not bode well for the incumbent.

The latest from the campaign trail

— A fourth Republican presidential debate has been set for next month, with heightened polling requirements that could make the stage less crowded than before, the Associated Press reported. The debate would take place Dec. 6 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., according to a memo. Although the party won’t confirm until Monday who will be on stage for the third event, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are expected to participate.

— Away from cameras and under oath, former President Trump exploded repeatedly on Monday while prosecutors grilled him in his New York civil fraud trial about how his company calculated his net worth and tabulated his assets as it sought hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, Times writer Sarah D. Wire reported.

— The field of candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination is narrowing, but five candidates will make their case to voters in the third Republican National Committee debate Wednesday night in Miami, Times writer Faith E. Pinho reported.

The view from Washington

— The Supreme Court on Tuesday sounded wary of extending the 2nd Amendment to keep guns in the hands of potentially dangerous people who are put under a domestic violence restraining order, Times writer David G. Savage reported.

— The House voted late Tuesday to censure Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — the only Palestinian American in Congress — in an extraordinary rebuke of her rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war, the Associated Press reported. The 234-188 tally came after enough Democrats joined with Republicans to censure Tlaib, a punishment one step below expulsion from the House.

— Former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti struggled to make progress on some of the many problems that beset the pandemic-scarred city, including homelessness, crime and housing affordability. Now he’s reinventing himself in India, Times writer Courtney Subramanian reported.

— The Supreme Court agreed Friday to rule on whether the government may ban the sale or use of “bump stocks” that can transform a semiautomatic rifle into one that shoots hundreds of bullets per minute with a single pull of the trigger, Times writer David G. Savage reported.

The view from California

— Gov. Gavin Newsom’s standing among California voters has hit an all-time low, with 49% disapproving of his performance as governor, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, Times writer Taryn Luna reported.

— Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to extend — and slightly increase to 4% — a soon-to-expire cap on rent increases, sparing tenants in unincorporated areas from a big rent hike for an additional six months, Times writer Rebecca Ellis reported.

— A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a key figure in the sprawling corruption scandal at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the city attorney’s office to nearly three years in prison, Times writer Dakota Smith reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this newsletter. That’s it friends! Sign up for our California Politics newsletter to get the best of The Times’ state politics reporting and to follow me on Instagram for the latest updates of my dear fur child, Kacey.