WASHINGTON - President Biden and Vice President Harris announced their reelection campaign with a clear focus on fighting for freedom, for more rights – not less – and for our democracy. This week, we saw yet again that those themes are overwhelmingly resonating with voters. 

On Tuesday, voters in Ohio sent a strong message by overwhelmingly rejecting MAGA Republicans’ attempts to weaken voters’ voices and further erode a woman’s right to choose. Ohio’s results – paired with Democratic overperformance this year in states like Wisconsin, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia – show that the issues President Biden and Democrats are campaigning on are motivating a broad coalition of voters.

Here’s a sample of what they’re saying about Democrats’ momentum heading into 2024:

On MSNBC, Peter Alexander: “Well, I think the sense is that this is bigger than Ohio – this is now a national issue. Think about it: You're in the middle of August here and… abortion rights was not technically on the ballot, this was what would have been a little-noticed fight over an arcane constitutional fight. But instead, they brought out more than three million people in that state right now… The evidence just keeps piling up as it relates to the issue of abortion rights. Look at what happened not too far back in Kansas on this issue, the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin getting a Democrat judge to help fill out the court there as well…”

On CNN, Jeff Zeleny: “This comes a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade… we have seen one state after another since then beginning with that surprise decision in Kansas last summer onto Kentucky, Montana, Michigan as well, protecting abortion rights in their states’ constitution…”

On NBC, Ali Vitali: “For a long time, many years, [Republicans have] been campaigning on the need to overturn Roe, then once the Supreme Court did exactly that, and this was credited to Republicans, they watched the backlash swiftly happen at ballot boxes across the country. You look at Kansas, one of the first states to have an abortion-related referendum on its ballot in the immediate aftermath after Dobbs. It's a red state and that referendum squarely fell in favor of abortion advocates. We've seen every similar referendum since then tilt in favor of abortion access… Republicans I talk to know that their party is out-of-step with the national mood on this, and each electoral data point that we've seen since then only continues to underscore that.”

On NBC, Chuck Todd: “...Republicans should hear warning bells from last night's vote — they've been ringing for months ever since the Dobbs decision. This isn't really an Ohio story, folks. Ohio is just the latest place that's reporting the same election story on abortion post-Dobbs. We’ve seen referendum votes to secure abortion rights win in Kansas, we’ve seen it in Michigan, a referendum to not protect the right to abortion failed in Kentucky. Voters even turned out for an off-year Supreme Court election in Wisconsin in huge numbers because that race – that individual justice – would be the deciding vote for future abortion issues in front of a court in that state. So if we’re paying attention, voters have already shown us how they will vote if abortion is the main issue on the ballot. It didn't matter whether it's a purple state, whether it's a ruby-red state... “

On CNN, Mario Parker: “It's been 15 months since the Dobbs decision was leaked. Republicans have another 15 months to figure out this messaging before the November 2024 election. As of right now, they just can't do it. You saw the pro-life groups messaging on television – Democrats welcome that fight.”

On MSNBC, Chris Hayes: “Voters have shown… they will crawl over broken glass, coast to coast, state to state to repudiate the Dobbs decision and the banning of abortion – the taking away of that right. It keeps happening and I think it’s going to keep happening a lot more, and tonight’s another turning point in that.”

Politico, Madison Fernandez, Alice Miranda Ollstein And Zach Montellaro: “Tuesday’s election proved that the state-by-state battle over abortion rights is still a serious motivator to get voters to the polls — even when abortion isn’t directly on the ballot.”

Associated Press, Sara Burnett And Christine Fernando: “...The overwhelming defeat of a measure that would have made it tougher to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution this fall was the latest indicator that the issue remains a powerful force at the ballot box. The election saw record turnout for what’s typically a sleepy August election date and sets up another battle in November, when Ohio will be the only state this year to have reproductive rights on the ballot. It also gives hope to Democrats and other abortion rights supporters who say the matter could sway voters their way again in 2024.”

Politico, Alice Miranda Ollstein: “Anti-abortion forces suffered a staggering loss in Ohio’s special election this week. Now, in the aftermath of that defeat and others over the last year, the movement is grappling with how to forge ahead… This soul-searching on the right shows how fractured the anti-abortion movement remains on both tactics and messaging more than a year after they achieved their decades-long goal of toppling Roe v. Wade. Whether and how anti-abortion groups recalibrate over the next year could have massive implications — not only for the outcomes of future abortion-rights ballot initiatives around the country but also for Republicans up and down the ballot who back restrictions on the procedure.”

FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakich: “That high turnout tells us two things: First, voters saw this as an election that was about much more than constitutional election law. And second, nine months after the 2022 midterm elections and 13 months after the Dobbs decision, abortion remains a highly motivating issue for voters.”

NBC News, Sahil Kapur: “The end of Roe v. Wade drove voters toward Democrats in the 2022 elections and since then, abortion opponents have lost a series of state elections: a ballot measure in Kansas, this year's Wisconsin Supreme Court race and now Ohio’s Issue 1 ballot measure.”

The Washington Post, E. J. Dionne: “When you do everything you can to rig an election and still lose, you have a problem. Voters in Ohio told the state’s Republican Party on Tuesday that it has a big problem, and they sent that message to the GOP nationwide.”

NBC News, Amanda Terkel and Jiachuan Wu: “Anti-abortion advocates scored a big win on June 24, 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. But since then, their luck seems to have run out. Abortion has been on the ballot in seven states since that landmark court decision one year ago and in each instance, in red states and blue states, anti-abortion advocates have lost. In some instances, voters have approved state constitutional amendments protecting abortion rights. In others, they've rejected measures that would weaken protections or make explicit in the state constitution that abortion rights are not protected.”