The Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate was an important factor in Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection

Prior to the 2012 presidential election, Democrats accused the Republican Party of waging a ‘war on women’ over their opposition to abortion, and to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for employers to provide birth control coverage as part of their workplace based health insurance. In new research, Melissa Deckman and John McTague investigate how this narrative affected the outcome of the election. They find that whilevoters’ attitudes about abortion had no direct influence on whether they voted for Mitt Romney or Obama, attitudes about the birth control mandate, however, were significantly related to voting for Obama. They also write that voters were less likely to view Republican opposition to the birth control mandate as an issue of women’s personal sexual behavior, and instead perceived it as more in tune with their attitudes towards health care and social welfare in general.