Some issues are always top of voters' mind, such as jobs and the economy. Other issues can be influenced by specific events.

Elizabeth Cohen, professor of political science, says that voters often respond to major news events and how those events are framed in the media. However, she says the news around abortion and immigration were very different events.

"The Dobbs decision was surrounded by intrigue, following the leak of a draft decision well before the decision was issued as well as controversy about the disparity between what some in the majority had promised with respect to the precedent of Roe v. Wade vs. what they delivered in the Dobbs decision," Cohen says. "Dobbs represents a once-in-a-lifetime event in people's lives. It is also a singular event in our nation's history. Rarely does half the population lose a fundamental right that had been established by the Court a half-century earlier."