INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s Republican legislators didn’t pay a political price for enacting a state abortion ban despite Democrats trying to capitalize on anger among voters who support women’s right to choose.
Tuesday’s election results show that Republicans will maintain supermajority control of both the state House and Senate that they’ve held since 2013, giving them power to take action even without any Democrats present.
Democrats failed to defeat any of the Republican lawmakers they had targeted in suburban Indianapolis, Northwest Indiana and the South Bend area where they made the GOP-supported abortion ban a top campaign issue.
The leader of Indiana’s most prominent anti-abortion group called the election results “a big day for life in Indiana,” saying “every pro-life incumbent” state lawmaker won reelection.
“In spite of predictions by some pundits and pollsters that Indiana went too far in its approach to protecting unborn children, yesterday’s election results serve as a reminder that Indiana is a pro-life state,” Indiana Right to Life CEO Mike Fichter said in a statement Wednesday.
The Indiana results stand in contrast to the success abortion rights supporters had in states where access was on the ballot Tuesday, including Michigan voters enshrining it into the state constitution and the defeat in Kentucky of an anti-abortion measure.