Q&A of the Day – How Should Republicans Handle the Abortion Issue in 2024?
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio If it wasn’t already crystal clear it should be now. Abortion is a losing issue for Republicans. How do Republicans avoid losing on this issue again next year?
Bottom Line: My knee jerk reaction is for candidates not to run on it. Simply opening the door to proposed abortion restrictions, regardless of how sensible they may be, invites the opportunity for Democrat challengers to flood the airwaves and digital properties with messages of how candidate X wants to take away your right to choose. The quintessential example of this played out in Virginia. Two years ago, before abortion became a prominent issue, Glenn Youngkin led a Republican wave in the state which Joe Biden won by double-digits just a year earlier. His momentum helped elect a complete Republican cabinet, flipped control of the state house and left the state senate in play for Republicans to flip in this year’s cycle. What’s happened since? Glenn Youngkin, with a divided state legislature, which blocked much of his agenda, became extremely popular. His approval rating in Virginia most recently stands at 55% compared to just 41% for President Biden. While his name wasn’t on the ballot, he relentlessly campaigned on behalf of Republican candidates across the state saying that in fact his agenda was on the ballot. Now one would think that a popular governor calling on his state’s voters to elect Republicans in the state legislature, so that he could advance his agenda would be a winning message. Ordinarily it would be. So why is it that the popular governor not only didn’t get his wish, but lost control in the one chamber Republicans had control of? Abortion. Glenn Youngkin made an unforced error of effectively putting abortion on the ballot and it lost.
To give you an idea of how effective Democrats have been in messaging about abortion, Glenn Younkin’s plan is for a 15-week limit for abortions with exceptions, consider this. When surveyed voters supported a 15-week limit for abortions with exceptions, by a 55% - 37% margin. A margin wide enough that even if it's off a bit it should still be a winning issue for an already popular governor. But the reality was that while Youngkin’s proposed policy was in line with most of Virginia’s voters, his messaging didn’t get through to most voters. The Democrat machine’s messaging on abortion is loud and it’s strong. The moment abortion is on the ballot, literally or figuratively, they pound the message that Republicans will take away your right to choose. That message in a world of short attention spans is far easier than attempting to explain the pragmatic policy of 15-week limits with exceptions. It’s a message that’s so effective that it led to a decisive number of voters in the middle to effectively vote against the policy they support. That’s the long explanation as to why my initial reaction is for Republicans not to run on the abortion issue. But that alone won’t stop it from being an issue that Democrats will continue to hammer home for as many elections as they possibly can. Pragmatically, there is a strategy for Republicans to handle the issue.
Somewhat ironically what played out on the abortion issue in Ohio on Tuesday may prove to be the path forward for Republicans. While Ohio’s Republicans largely opposed the proposed constitutional amendment protecting access to abortions, what happened with the ballot measure, which passed by 13-points, might illustrate the path forward on addressing the issue. Sending it to the voters. There are two different strategies at play. There’s a federal strategy and state strategy on the issue.
For Republicans the federal strategy both principally, and politically should be to stay away from it. For decades prolife conservatives, including myself, called for Roe v. Wade to be overturned so that the issue would return to the states. It happened. That should be the end of the story at the federal level. Two things will happen should Republicans attempt to pass federal abortion restrictions. From inflation to crime to geopolitical instability all other issues will go out the window and the only issue Democrats will run on is abortion. The only issue their allies in news media will focus on is abortion. And as we’ve seen for two consecutive years when abortion has been on the ballot, Democrats win, and Republicans lose. Which means that regardless of whether Republicans run on federal abortion restrictions or not they won’t be passed.
The state strategy for dealing with the issue, in the states that haven’t already addressed the issue (and potentially for some that even have), is to send the issue to the voters. Ohio’s Republicans may not have wanted what happened Tuesday, but what it did was take the issue off the table in state elections going forward. Voters in the state decided what they wanted to do on the issue and that’s that. By sending the issue to the voters it takes the politicians themselves out of it. There’s no doubt that after the success in a red state like Ohio on Tuesday abortion advocates will aggressively attempt to place it on ballots all over. Rather than fighting it, what Republicans could consider doing is proposing it. Most voters support restrictions on abortions. Let them vote for proposed amendments that both protect access and include sensible restrictions. It’s effectively a strategy of letting voters do constitutionally what legislators have been attempting to do in some states. Because Republicans in Ohio fought the proposed amendment the limit in Ohio is now set to be 23 weeks – longer than Roe. Had they instead crafted a competing proposed Amendment say, at 15 weeks, that almost certainly would have passed instead. Republicans generally need to step aside and let voters decide on this issue.
Over the next year much of the GOP messaging on this issue will be driven by who’s at the top of the ticket. Not-so-coincidently Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, who have not taken strong stances on this issue, have consistently polled better head-to-head with Joe Biden than Ron DeSantis. This issue, with Florida’s six-week limit on abortion signed into law by Governor DeSantis, is likely the prominent reason why.