Any suggestions or strategies for the (Democrats) in this upcoming 2024 midterm election?

A pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal condition has left Texas to obtain an abortion, her attorneys say. The news came as the Texas Supreme Court ruled against Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two, after she spent nearly a week seeking the court’s permission to end her pregnancy.

"After a week of legal whiplash and threats of persecution from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Kate Cox has been forced to leave Texas to get healthcare outside of the state," said the Center for Reproductive Rights, the group representing Cox, in a statement.

"Kate has been unable to get an abortion in Texas, even though her fetus has a fatal condition and continuing the pregnancy threatens her future fertility," the organization said.

Cox’s baby has a condition known as trisomy 18, which is when a baby has an extra copy of chromosome 18. The diagnosis has a very high likelihood of miscarriage or stillbirth, and low survival rate.

Cox’s lawsuit, citing doctors, argued that continuing the pregnancy jeopardized both her health and ability to have more children.

Trisomy 18 occurs in approximately 1 in 2,500 diagnosed pregnancies, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. There is no live birth in about 70% of pregnancies involving the diagnosis that proceeds past 12 weeks gestational age, according to a legal filing that the two groups submitted to the court.

Texas' abortion ban makes narrow exceptions when the life of the mother is in danger but not for fetal anomalies. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that Cox had not shown that any of the complications in her pregnancy rose to the level of threatening her life.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has not disclosed where Cox went to obtain the procedure. On Monday, she would have been 20 weeks and six days pregnant.

Hours after Cox's attorneys announced she had left Texas, the state Supreme Court issued its decision that ruled against Cox. It came three days after the court temporarily halted a lower judge's ruling that gave Cox permission to get an abortion.

"No one disputes that Ms. Cox's pregnancy has been extremely complicated. Any parents would be devastated to learn of their unborn child's trisomy 18 diagnosis," the court wrote. "Some difficulties in pregnancy, however, even serious ones, do not pose the heightened risks to the mother the exception encompasses."

Cox, who lives in the Dallas area, was believed to be the first woman in the U.S. to ask a court for permission for an abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year.

In Texas, Paxton mounted an aggressive defense to try to prevent Cox from having an abortion. He sent three Houston hospitals letters warning of legal consequences — both criminal and civil — if they allowed Cox's physician to provide the procedure. He also argued that Cox had not demonstrated that her life was at imminent risk, including noting that she was sent home after her multiple visits to emergency rooms.

Cox had cesarean surgeries during her first two pregnancies. Her lawsuit argued that inducing labor would carry a risk of a uterine rupture because of her prior C-sections, and that another one at full term would endanger her ability to carry another child. But Paxton contended those arguments still fell short.

"Rather, the only question is whether Ms. Cox's condition meets the exception, regardless of how long the child is expected to live," Paxton's office told the court in a filing over the weekend.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Paxton’s office for additional comment.

Any suggestions or strategies for the (Democrats)
in this upcoming 2024 election?

Any suggestions or strategies for the (Democrats) in this upcoming 2024 election?

Any suggestions or strategies for the (Democrats) in this upcoming 2024 election?

AMARILLO — Near the tip of the top of the state, Amarillo is far from the Capitol in Austin, Dallas’ busy downtown, and Houston’s congested highways. The “floating” city in the Panhandle is often forgotten by much of the state, residents say. Most of the country has never heard of their home.

That changed when the Amarillo City Council took up a proposed abortion travel ban in October. The debate put an unfamiliar spotlight on the city — activists flocked to Amarillo, national organizations joined local efforts, and council members' phones rang off the hook.

Adding to the public interest was how the council responded to it. Led by Mayor Cole Stanley, the five-member council said they would not rush to approve it. Unlike other city and county officials, Amarillo’s leaders punted the issue in a rare step that would allow more thoughtful consideration and input from residents.

The conversation is set to continue. The council announced Tuesday it will consider the ordinance during a Dec. 19 meeting. The council will use that meeting to navigate “the right way forward,” Stanley said. The news comes as Texas makes national headlines once again for its restrictive abortion laws — a Dallas woman left the state this week to terminate a non-viable pregnancy after a losing legal battle to obtain one here.

Council members have not signaled how they could change the ordinance since it was originally presented.

With a vote on the travel ban in Amarillo looming, residents including abortion activists, health care workers and legal professionals, are worried. Their top concern: This ordinance would create an atmosphere of fear and make it more difficult to access standard health care in this largely rural area of the state where people have to travel long ways for care as is.

There is reason to worry about an erosion to health care for expecting mothers: One study found maternal deaths were two times higher in rural communities in the U.S. than urban areas. The state also ranks last in the U.S. in access to high-quality prenatal and maternal care.

Adding to their concerns are the ongoing lawsuits from women across Texas detailing the complications that have come up in much-wanted pregnancies and the traumatic outcomes since the state banned nearly all abortions in June 2022.

“So many rural counties are maternal health care deserts, and things like this ordinance just worsens it,” said Fariha Samad, an Amarillo resident and member of the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance. “It creates an atmosphere of fear.”

Even though Texas has a near-total ban, the proposed travel ordinances are the next fight for access. The so-called travel ban would outlaw the use of Amarillo’s roads to transport a pregnant person for an abortion in another state, opening the door for lawsuits from private Texans against anyone who “aids and abet” the procedure. The lawsuits are the only enforcement mechanism for the ordinance.

It’s the enforcement that these residents can’t look past. Amarillo civic leaders take pride in having a friendly, neighborly atmosphere in the community. Neighbors turning each other in to collect reward money seemingly goes against that, and some council members said in the first meeting they did not like that element of the ordinance.

“I’d say most people, even here in the heart of Trump Country, are against restrictive statutes,” said Ryan Brown, an Amarillo attorney. “As written, this ordinance further divides the citizens of Amarillo and will put citizens against each other.”

Council member Tom Scherlen was happy to see what he calls “true democracy” during the council’s first meeting on the topic. He said both sides were mostly able to speak in a respectful manner, and it’s a reflection of the close community. Scherlen said Amarillo is very conservative, but he has to represent all viewpoints.

“I’m very pro-life, but I was elected by all citizens to represent all citizens,” Scherlen told the Tribune. “At some point in time, I’m going to have to separate my feelings from what I need to do as a council member.”

During the last meeting, several supporters of the ordinance from New Mexico and other areas of Texas were in attendance and encouraged the council to adopt the ban and stop “abortion trafficking.” While some were in attendance again Tuesday, the council limited public comment to residents of Amarillo.

Brown, the attorney in Amarillo, believes the ordinance was written to be confusing.

“I think the statute is just meant to scare people and deter abortions,” Brown said. “So the key is to educate people about the weaknesses.”

Mark Lee Dickson, director of Right to Life of East Texas and the anti-abortion activist behind the ordinance, previously told the Tribune that he believes it would hold up in court.

"The abortion trafficking ordinances do not interfere with the right to travel," he wrote in a statement to The Texas Tribune. "The ordinances only impose penalties on those who are using roads within the county to traffic pregnant mothers across state lines for the purpose of an abortion."

In the days following the first meeting, Dickson shared on social media that Amarillo would be his primary base of operations for the time being.

The ordinance does not directly stop interstate travel by setting up physical barriers or checkpoints at the Texas-New Mexico border, but legal experts say it is still a violation. Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge and professor at Harvard Law School, said the ordinance challenges constitutional rights because interstate travel is being affected and essentially penalized.

“By criminalizing support for travel, they are functionally doing the same thing,” said Gertner, who spent much of her career advocating for women’s rights and civil liberties.

Gertner said that if the ordinance passes, people should challenge it regardless of the likely outcome. She added that the next step would be to mobilize voters.

“We goofed with Roe v. Wade, the movement dissolved because people thought it was secure,” Gertner said. “It was never secure. So now the political movement is rebuilding.”

So far, four counties — Lubbock, Cochran, Mitchell and Goliad — have passed the travel bans. Odessa, with a population of nearly 117,000, and Little-River Academy, a small town of 2,200, have also passed similar policies. Amarillo, with more than 200,000 residents, would be the most populous city in Texas to put a ban in place if it is approved.

In November, state Sen. Nate Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, introduced Senate Bill 45, which would prohibit abortion travel bans. Johnson said “this is a flagrant infringement upon the constitutional right to interstate travel. It’s a pernicious Big Government acting at the local level.”

Like most bills that did not fit the parameters of the special session, it failed to get a hearing, though it signals Democrats are prepared to make this an issue going forward.

Similar bans are being put in other states and are being met with legal challenges. The U.S. justice department filed a statement of interest in two lawsuits out of Alabama seeking to protect the right to interstate travel. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that it demonstrates the department’s commitment to defending the right to travel.

The department also mentions how the Supreme Court has held the belief that states may not prevent third parties from assisting others in exercising their right to travel.

Any suggestions or strategies for the (Democrats)
in this upcoming 2024 election?

Any suggestions or strategies for the (Democrats)
in this upcoming 2024 election?

That large noise you heard late Tuesday night was a collective sigh of relief from the White House—and Democrats across the nation—as election results from Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky came in.

The results—particularly in Virginia and Ohio, which will have an outsized role in determining not only who wins the White House in 2024 but also control of the Senate—affirmed that the coalition of voters who came together to defeat former President Donald Trump and MAGA extremism in nearly every election since 2016 and who delivered the White House to President Biden, is still holding strong heading into next year's election.

The results could not come at a more opportune moment for Biden and Democrats, as a series of bad polls over recent weeks—capped off by this weekend's New York Times/Siena poll which showed Biden losing to the twice-impeached and criminally indicted Donald Trump in five out of the six key battleground states—had led to a palpable chorus of Democratic freakout and bedwetting.

And here is the best news for Democrats: This week's election results are not an outliner. In fact, they have been the norm for the last few years, particularly since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

There have been 30 special elections this year, and in those races, Democrats have outperformed each seat's base partisanship score by an average of 11 points. Last month saw Democrats overperform—and win races—in two states the Trump team has made clear they view as critical to their path to victory: Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. And Democrats this year have also won mayoral races in Jacksonville, Florida, and Colorado Springs, Colorado, two Republican-leaning cities, and they won a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat with 56 percent of the vote.

In other words, despite bad poll numbers for Biden, Democrats keep winning. And decisively.

So, what is the disconnect between the New York Times poll (and many other recent polls) and the election results?

Probably lots of things.

But mostly, polls, like the New York Times' and others, at this point in the 2024 contest are an abstract proxy for a referendum on Biden and his term. But in reality, when voters hit the ballot box, as we saw on Tuesday, most voters, when push comes to shove, see elections as a choice between two candidates, not a referendum.

And that choice has benefited Democrats in election and after election since 2016.

Also, polls are a snapshot in time, not a prediction of a future outcome. Put another way, Trump-vs.-Biden polling this far out from the election is more likely a snapshot of voter discontent with an economy that many feel still doesn't work for them and two wars abroad that have dominated the news cycle as of late, not a prediction of what will happen a year from now.

"Don't judge me against the Almighty; judge me against the alternative," Biden is famous for saying. Now he—and Democrats—must use every day for the next year to turn that saying into action.

They must make the 2024 race a choice, not a referendum. And if they do, they should see results similar to what we saw on Tuesday. Regardless of what today's polls show.

Let's be clear, Democrats should take nothing for granted. 2024 will be a close election. But freaking out over polling a year out is not only pointless, it is counterproductive and a waste of time. Because the best predictor of voting behavior is voting behavior.

And those in full panic mode over the recent polling should remember: Polls don't vote; people do. And so far, in nearly every election since 2016, people have voted to reject Donald Trump and the extremism of the Republican Party.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hopes a $35 million investment this election cycle will help the party win over communities of color and take control of the U.S. House.

House Democrats announced the eight-figure investment, P.O.W.E.R. The People, on Tuesday as part of its plan to “persuade and mobilize” Black, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian voters in key congressional districts across the nation. This year’s money surpasses the $30 million spent during the last two election cycles.

“By intentionally prioritizing sustained outreach to these communities, we are marrying our moral and strategic imperatives to ensure Democrats win back the House,” said Missayr Boker, DCCC deputy executive director for campaigns, in a news release. “While extremist Republicans continue to lie, cheat and suppress the vote of people of color in order to win elections, Democrats understand that democracy is strengthened when everyone’s voice is heard.”

The investment comes as some communities of color, particularly Latinos, appear to be moving away from the Democratic Party in recent years. Early 2024 polls have shown waning support by Black and Asian American voters as well.

Mike Madrid, a Republican Latino voting trends expert, said the shift is more pronounced in Latinos, but can be seen among many communities of color.

“Every non-white group discernible has had a demonstrable measurable rightward shift,” Madrid said.

House Democrats say the $35 million will go toward research and polling, paid media, in-district organizing, voter education and battling online disinformation and misinformation. The campaign will include messaging in English, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, Spanglish and Vietnamese.

“We know what’s at stake for our communities,” said Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-Los Angeles, in a statement. “The DCCC’s significant, early investment and focused effort to persuade and mobilize people of color will help us win back the majority so we can continue to deliver for the American people.”

The recent investment is important as low voter turnout has long been an issue for communities of color, said Mindy Romero, director of USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy. She said the issue persists because many campaigns and candidates do not invest significant outreach. Other times, the outreach is not well informed, properly conducted and does not “connect with communities.” She encouraged both parties to continue investing money toward voter mobilization.

“The more money that’s spent, to conduct outreach, to just remind people that there’s an election, to tell them why it matters is important,” Romero said.