At the national level, abortion is still a high-stakes issue with both major presidential candidates talking about it in their campaigns, but it may be too early to say how abortion will play out in local elections. 

Reproductive rights energized voters nationwide in 2022, six months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its Dobbs decision. The issue helped Democrats win races across the country. Abortion also played a role in the New Mexico gubernatorial race, with both candidates staking out separate positions. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who has prioritized reproductive rights, beat her Republican, Mark Ronchetti, opponent by 6.5 percentage points.

In 2020, reproductive rights also energized voters in New Mexico in the June primary to oust six Democratic Senate incumbents, some of whom were powerful and had been in the state senate for decades. 

But how abortion will play out in the 2024 elections at the state level is still uncertain. Some observers who spoke to NM Political Report said it’s too early to tell but most agree that what happens at the national level could lead to a down-ballot voting for pro-abortion rights candidates. And with states such as Florida, which just enacted a six-week abortion ban, and Arizona, whose supreme court ruled that an 1864 abortion ban is enforceable, the right to reproductive freedom worries many, as well as the future of healthcare and the existential threat to women.

Related: How the AZ Supreme Court decision on abortion impacts New Mexico

Another unknown for the future of the election cycle is the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on mifepristone and how that may play out in November races, particularly at the national level. If the court rules to reduce access to abortion medication, there is potential that that could impact local races as it would reinvigorate the debate on reproductive rights at all levels of the political spectrum.

Most analysts and Supreme Court watchers agree that when the nine justices heard oral argument on the mifepristone case last month, even some of the conservative justices appeared skeptical of whether the case had merit. But it’s too early to tell how a court containing six conservative justices who have been willing to overturn decades of precedent will decide the case. That decision isn’t expected until June.

In addition, another Supreme Court case that has gotten less attention is about to be heard before the court in a few weeks. The high court will hear oral argument around whether a federal law protects Idaho providers from facing criminal and civil action for providing abortion care as a stabilizing treatment in the event of a medical emergency. 

Related: Supreme Court to hear two abortion cases this spring

Joshua Kastenberg, professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law, told NM Political Report that in the Idaho case, there are two conflicting laws and the providers in Idaho can’t balance between them. He said that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Idaho, many will see that decision as “part and parcel of the path of the destruction of Roe.”

Kastenberg said that, regarding abortion rights, “the battle lines on this issue are already drawn.” But what makes a difference at the national level are politicians promising to put judges into the judiciary who will be likely to rule in one direction or the other, he said.

“That politicizes the judiciary and does it on a significant issue of importance to the country….The court decision puts more fuel on the fire but it changes no one’s mind,” he said.

Wendy Hansen, political science professor at The University of New Mexico and co-author of an upcoming book called Regulating Abortion: The Politics of U.S. Abortion Policy, told NM Political Report that issues such as the Idaho case and the recent battle around in vitro fertilization treatments in Alabama “keeps [reproductive rights] at the national agenda and debate.”

Deborah McFarlane, also a political science professor at UNM and co-author of the same book, said that as far as reproductive rights go, “that genie is out of the bottle.”

“People feel like those rights are threatened,” McFarlane said.

McFarlane said that an election study in 2022 found that abortion was the second most important issue on New Mexico voters minds for Democrats but for Republicans it was fifth. She said there was also a “huge gender gap.”

“Women were more than twice as likely to say abortion is important in the election for them than men. Regardless of party,” McFarlane said.

State level

At the state level, a former state senator Dede Feldman told NM Political Report that even though there are a number of vacant seats this year in the legislature, “it does not necessarily favor the Republicans.”

“Very few are swing seats,” she said.

She said she doesn’t think there will be a great deal of change in the legislature with the upcoming election. She said that she doesn’t know if abortion will be “as big of an issue in the Democratic primaries” as it was in 2020.

“It’s kind of been settled at the state level in terms of taking that old rule off the books,” she said.

But state Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill, D-Silver City, said that the reproductive freedom that exists in New Mexico “is not guaranteed.” Correa Hemphill faces former state Sen. Gabriel “Gabe” Ramos, now a Republican from Silver City, in the November election. That seat, SD 28, is considered a swing district.

Correa Hemphill previously unseated Ramos in the 2020 primary when he ran as a Democrat. She went on to defeat a Republican in the 2020 general election by 386 votes.

Ramos was one of the Democrats who sided with Republicans to vote against the bill to repeal the 1969 abortion ban when it first went for a vote in the state senate in 2019 and Correa Hemphill was a part of the progressive Democrat sweep that helped to effect the change necessary in the legislature to pass three major reproductive bills over the last few years.

“If the makeup of the legislature changes, it could affect women’s access to abortion and reproductive care here in New Mexico,” Correa Hemphill said.

Correa Hemphill said that in SD 28, “a large number support me because they feel [abortion] is an important issue and they want to make sure New Mexico is protecting reproductive care and abortion and I will continue to fight for pro-choice legislators who are going to make sure we’re protecting women’s rights.”

Angel Charley, Laguna, Zuni and Diné, is running for an open state senate seat, SD 30, with no incumbent because of redistricting. Charley described the district as very rural and that it travels from Los Lunas to the state line with Arizona and is home to a diverse population.

Charley’s opponent is Clemente Sanchez, a Democrat from Acomita. Sanchez was also one of the Democrats who voted against the repeal of the 1969 abortion ban in 2019 and subsequently lost his seat in the 2020 primary. 

The winner of the SD 30 primary race will win the seat. There is no Republican opponent for the November general election.

Charley, who previously was the executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, said that in her previous role, there was a lot of talk and training around the intersection of access to reproductive care and violence against Native women. 

“We understand that women who’ve experienced violence often experience sexual violence. I’ve done a lot of advocating around resources for quality healthcare because we know Indigenous women experience sexual violence at higher rates than other women in the country,” she said.