Will abortion be on Iowa voters’ minds in 2026? This anti-abortion advocacy group hopes so

DES MOINES — The 2026 Iowa midterm elections are less than a year out, and policy issues that campaigns and voters are talking about include health care costs and affordability. But one issue both parties have used to energize voters in the past has yet to gain prominence: abortion.

In the past few elections, reproductive health care has been spotlighted by both parties on a national and state level, including most recently in 2024, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the implementation of Iowa’s state law in 2024 that banned most abortions. During last year's presidential election, Democrats rallied around the issue in hopes of mobilizing voters around protecting access to the procedure.

Anti-abortion advocacy group Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America wants to keep the topic alive in the midterms and it is putting $80 million toward canvassing, digital advertising and early voting initiatives in congressional battleground states, including Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Iowa.

A key focal point will be restricting access to the abortion pill, as rates of its use continue to climb after states passed stricter abortion laws post-Roe.

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Earlier this fall, the group spent two weekends canvassing in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts, where Republican Iowa U.S. Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn are up for re-election. The races are ranked as some of the most competitive in the country, with the Cook Political report labeling the 1st District race as a “toss-up” and the 3rd District as “lean Republican.”

Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the group wants to make sure Republican candidates don’t put the issue on the back burner during the midterms.

“Many Republicans, especially right after Dobbs, just may be hoping, ‘If I don't talk about it, it'll be fine,’” Dannenfelser said. “You don't even have to be a political consultant to know that if you don't talk about it, and your opponent labels you and explains your position, it won't be one that looks good. So you have to be ready to explain your position in a compassionate and reasonable way and that's when Republicans do well."

An emerging battle over the abortion pill

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, the anti-abortion movement has devoted much of its energy and focus to restricting access to the abortion pill.

Nationally, there has been an uptick in medication abortions following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade. Medication abortions made up 63 percent of all abortions in the country in 2023, compared with 53 percent in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that supports abortion rights.

Iowa saw the same trend during the time since the law dubbed the “fetal heartbeat ban” went into effect, where there were upticks in rates of medication abortions in the state and an increase in Iowa women traveling to neighboring states to seek abortions.

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The issue is playing out at the state and national level as anti-abortion advocates call for restrictions on the abortion pill, which they argue can cause women to experience adverse effects.

Anti-abortion advocates have frequently used a recently published study from the right-leaning think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center to back this argument. The study has not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal and reproductive rights advocates have criticized it, arguing it's not supported by science.

Many Republican-led states, including Iowa, are eyeing legislation that would place restrictions on medicated abortion, but Dannenfelser said state laws can only go so far if the federal government doesn’t enact further restrictions too.

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“Drugs are flowing into Iowa, just like they are in every other state that's passed pro-life laws,” Dannenfelser said.

Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America and other anti-abortion groups vocally denounced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a generic abortion pill ahead of the government shutdown in October. They are also calling on President Donald Trump's administration to establish “reasonable rules” around the distribution of the abortion pill, similar to its actions during Trump's first term in office.

“All the FDA has to do is just reestablish the rules that Trump had in his first administration. And why that hasn't happened yet is a huge mystery,” Dannenfelser said. “There have been promises and promises for nine months now to study the pill.”

Canvassing the districts

In October, Dannenfelser traveled to Iowa with roughly 50 college students to knock a total of 75,000 doors in the state’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts.

Dannenfelser said the canvassing was targeted toward anti-abortion voters who are casual ballot box goers.

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“It isn't a random sample. We're picking people who are with us, who might forget to vote, or have a track record of not voting, and then people who are leaning, so we generally get a very strong positive response,” Dannenfelser said.

While the canvassers are reaching a fraction of voters in the districts, mobilizing a key faction of Republican voters can be a deciding factor in races that have come down to razor-thin margins in the past few elections.

Miller-Meeks has narrowly won a handful of recent elections, including winning by 798 votes in 2024 and by six votes in 2020.

“They're (Miller-Meeks and Nunn) very levelheaded and good communicators, and have voted, voted well from our perspective, and in these past couple of years, and deserve our support,” Dannenfelser said.

The group will be back in Iowa during the election cycle to focus on other competitive races for the U.S. Senate and the governor’s office. Sen. Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds, both Republicans, are not running for re-election, meaning both seats will be open.

“We do care very much about who the next governor is, who the next senator is. So with a lot of open seats, anything can happen,” Dannenfelser said. "We're very dedicated to making sure that those statewide races are covered as well.”

Will Democrats focus on reproductive rights?

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Although Democrats made reproductive health care access a primary focal point in 2024, Democratic consultant Jeff Link, founder of his own consulting firm and a veteran of Iowa Congressional and presidential campaigns, hopes the party throws “that playbook into the trash” and instead focuses on the “bread and butter issues” like the cost of living and health care.

“It didn't work at all and every time Democrats stray away from an economic message that focuses on the vast majority of voters and we get into these social issues, it hurts,” Link said. “A lot of that messaging came straight from the party committees in Washington, D.C., and those are folks who don't spend a lot of time sitting around kitchen tables, and they don't understand that people are having a hard time making ends meet. Groceries are too expensive, gas is too expensive.”

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Although the issue of reproductive rights has been a mobilizing factor in the past, issues like the economy will eclipse the importance of the topic for voters, University of Northern Iowa political science professor Donna Hoffman said.

However, Hoffman said, the issue could come up in Democratic campaigns as a piece of the broader argument around preserving enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, which could send health insurance premiums skyrocketing if they expire at the end of the year.

“Democrats are going to want to push the issue of reproductive rights, likely in the overall kind of framework of health care, because health care, with potentially ACA tax credits, the expanded ones going away … that's probably an issue of more focus,” Hoffman said.

Gazette Des Moines Bureau Chief Erin Murphy contributed to this report.