Election results today could forecast 2024: Three critical races for Joe Biden to watch

WASHINGTON – One year out from the 2024 presidential election, the outcomes of Tuesday's off-year elections in a handful of states could provide major clues for President Joe Biden's road ahead.

Will abortion access continue to be a motivating factor for Democratic voters like it has in other recent elections?

Or will Biden's struggling brand, amid low approval ratings and and hardened concerns about the economy, hurt Democrats up and down the ballot?

Biden and Democrats need something to smile about after a series of brutal polls from the New York Times/Siena College Sunday found the president trailing Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in five of six top battleground states in next year's election

Just as troubling, the polls found Biden underperforming among key members of the Democratic base - voters of color and young people.

Biden's precarious position has Democrats rattled, with David Axelrod, former adviser for President Barack Obama, even suggesting that Biden should bow out of his 2024 bid.

Here are three races you can bet the White House will be watching closely tonight.

Ohio's Issue 1 on abortion access

To overcome headwinds in the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats exceeded expectations in part by campaigning heavily on ensuring access to abortion following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe. v. Wade.

The strategy turned out the progressive base, women voters and many independents to vote for Democrats.

Biden and Democrats want to duplicate the midterm formula in 2024. But it is unclear whether abortion politics will resonate as strongly two years after the Supreme Court ruled against a constitutional right to an abortion.

Ohio will provide the most obvious answer to that question Tuesday.

Ohio voters will vote on Issue 1, which would change the Ohio Constitution to add abortion protections.

The measure would ensure the right “to one’s own reproductive medical treatment” including contraception, fertility treatment and abortion. It would also allow for abortions to be banned as soon as the fetus can live out of the womb unless a physician says keeping the pregnancy could endanger the patient’s life or health.

In August, voters rejected a measure that would have required 60% of the popular vote to adopt Issue 1 in a failed push by abortion opponents to set a higher bar. Voters rejected the measure 57%-43%.

Abortion-rights advocates have won all seven statewide elections with abortion on the ballot since the court’s decision including in red states such as Kansas.

Passage of Issue 1 in Ohio would mark an eighth such win.

Virginia state legislature up for grabs

In another bellwether on the power of abortion politics, control of Virginia's state legislature is up for grabs.

Democrats hold a 22-18 majority in the Senate while Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the House.

Either or both chambers could flip.

Virginia's Democratic statehouse candidate, particularly those running in Washington D.C.'s northern Virginia suburbs, have attacked Republicans relentlessly over abortion throughout the campaign.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin backs a 15-week abortion limit, with exceptions for rape, incest and severe medical emergencies. But Democrats have warned that Republicans will go further if they gain control the legislature.

Virginia has voted Democrat in the last four presidential elections, including Biden's 2020 victory over Trump, making it reliably blue and less of a swing state.

Youngkin's narrow 2021 victory over Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a Biden ally, was a stinging defeat for Democrats in a state that has become the blueprint for party's growing strength in suburbs.

A Republican takeover of the Virginia Seat would mark a major seatback for Democrats in Virginia - and perhaps signal a larger problem with Biden's unpopularity.

A tight Kentucky governor race

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a rare Democrat leading a southern state, is by some metrics the most popular Democratic governor in the country.

Yet he is in a fight to stave off Republican challenger Daniel Cameron, Kentucky's attorney general.

A Morning Consult poll in July found Beshear - a moderate and son of former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear - with an approval rating of 64% among Kentuckians, tops among all Democratic governors.

But the Cameron campaign has worked to nationalize the race, boasting Cameron's endorsement from Trump and tying Beshear to the unpopularity of Biden in the Bluegrass State.

"This week, Kentucky will speak loud and clear: we want strong leadership in our state instead of someone who enables Joe Biden," Cameron said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

A poll last week from Emerson College found the race in a dead heat, with Beshear and Cameron at 47%.

Even though Kentucky is a solidly red state, a Beshear loss - given his popularity - would be a crippling setback for Democrats in the South and raise major concerns about Biden's weaknesses.

If Beshear pulls it out, Biden and Democrats will let out a major sigh of relief. And you'll be hearing a lot more about Beshear on Democrats' bench of future presidential contenders.

In another gubernatorial race further south, Democrats are looking for a monumental upset as Brandon Presley makes a surprisingly strong run at incumbent GOP Gov. Tate Reeves.

Still, Reeves is a heavy favorite to win reelection, even though polling shows him underperforming in super conservative Mississippi.

Contributing: Associated Press. Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Today is election day. These 3 races could signal road ahead for Biden