Issue Framing After Dobbs: Examining How Abortion Was Addressed in Tweets During the 2022 Midterm Elections

Abstract

This article explores how abortion was framed on Twitter as an issue during the 2022 midterm elections directly after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. By leveraging a dataset of all tweets sent by US House of Representatives candidates for two months prior to the midterm elections, this study examines how both gender and partisanship impacted the discussion of abortion and shows that partisanship drove the rhetoric surrounding this issue during those elections. Whereas women candidates in general were significantly more likely to discuss abortion than their male counterparts, Democratic women led the way and were more likely to use “women-invoked rhetoric” to frame the issue.