Several candidates in New York City’s House primaries had put abortion rights front and center in their campaigns.

“No more rolling back 50 years of precedent!” Rep. Carolyn Maloney urged at a rally before her 12th Congressional District Democratic primary.

“Abortion rights are under threat from this country and we need to be discussing that here in the debate,” Elizabeth Holtzman said at an NY1 debate for New York’s 10th Congressional District earlier this month.

And City Councilmember Carlina Rivera insisted a couple weeks ago, “We know that abortion is on the ballot in November.”

But it seemed not to be in August.

While Democrats nationally are hoping the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade will propel midterm voters to keep the party in power, Democrats locally did not win on the issue alone last Tuesday.

Those campaigning hardest to protect abortion access fell to those who touted protecting democracy as their focus — among other priorities.

“Abortion is top of mind. It’s not the only top-of-mind,” noted Democratic strategist Olivia Lapeyrolerie.

And that’s not to say nominees Dan Goldman in the 10th District and Rep. Jerry Nadler in the 12th District hadn’t also pledged to preserve choice.

“In some ways, it’s been kind of made not a determinant factor in city politics for so long because everyone is, kind of, for the most part within… degrees of each other on the issue,” Lapeyrolerie said.

While Goldman’s rivals had accused him of waffling on abortion rights, he was clear where NY1 pressed him toward the end of the campaign.

“I don’t believe there should be any law that puts any restrictions on abortion,” he said in mid-August.

And though Maloney argued a woman could better protect women’s rights, Nadler has long championed reproductive care.

NARAL Pro-Choice America had co-endorsed Nadler and Maloney in NY-12 and endorsed Rep. Mondaire Jones in NY-10.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund also had backed Nadler, Maloney and Jones.

#VOTEPROCHOICE had endorsed Carlina Rivera in NY-10.

The group’s co-founder Heidi Sieck told NY1 that the country needs “the national Democratic apparatus to be fearless in their support of pro-choice candidates at every level, even in primaries.”

Where abortion rights did very much seem to be on the ballot was in the special election for the 19th Congressional District, a purple part of the exurbs, where Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro.

“When the Supreme Court ripped away reproductive freedoms, access to abortion rights, we said, ‘This is not what America stands for,’” Ryan said in his victory speech.

Lapeyrolerie warned that even New Yorkers living in a state with codified abortion rights should not take those protections for granted.

“Even though our city is incredibly liberal and progressive on reproductive justice,” she said, “that doesn’t mean that there are not anti-abortion forces in the city working to make that choice difficult.”