Republicans had yet another disappointing election night Tuesday, and abortion was plainly a major factor.
Ohio voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution; Gov. Andy Beshear (D) won re-election in Kentucky while questioning the state’s restrictions.
Most tellingly, Virginia Dems won legislative seats (flipping the House and retaining control of Senate) while running all-out on abortion rights — even as Gov. Glenn Youngkin rallied the whole GOP behind support for moving the 26-week ban to a 15-week one (which covers 90%+ of abortions in America, even when there’s no restrictions) with exceptions for rape, incest and threats to the life of the mother.
This, when polling suggests that 15 weeks is where most US voters would draw the line.
Also of note, the biggest GOP wins came in races where abortion was irrelevant: ousting hyperprogressive prosecutor Buba Biberaj in Loudon County, Va., and electing Ed Romaine as county executive race in Suffolk County, NY — where state law protects abortion basically until birth.
Republicans can’t just switch to being pro-choice; they’d not only look ridiculous, they’d lose far more votes than they gained.
But they need to figure out something: Abortion was also key to their disappointingly small gains in the US House of Representatives last year.
Notably, the ’22 House seats they did pick up came overwhelmingly in “no chance the law will change” New York and California.
One shift federal GOP candidates can make is to adopt the position Nikki Haley has taken in the presidential race: Admit the truth that there’s no chance of passing any national abortion law, since you’d need 60 votes in the Senate and neither pro-choicers nor pro-lifers have any hope of achieving that for the foreseeable future.
The fact that Donald Trump has been coy on the issue, yet still leads in GOP primary polls, suggests most pro-life voters will accept that.
Democrats will surely run hard on abortion anyway, but voters have to start noticing when Dems don’t want to talk about anything else.
And Republicans now have the voters (overwhelmingly) on their side on the economy, crime, immigration and foreign affairs.
That still leaves the GOP having to figure out an approach to state-level races where the issue is very much a live one. For now, that’s going to be some combination of trial-and-error and time: Less than two years after the Supreme Court threw abortion law back to the states, most of the country is still figuring out what to think about an issue most people don’t want to think about.