Abortion Is Wedging the GOP. And They Don’t Know How To Respond.

Photo courtesy of Bloomberg Finance LP

For decades, the GOP has successfully used “wedge” issues to divide Democrats and put them on the defensive. Whether it was same-sex marriage, “caravans” of migrants at our borders, “defunding” the police, or trans women and girls in sports, Republicans have long mastered the art of taking a hot button issue and making Democrats fight amongst themselves, either looking too strong, too soft, or too flip-floppy on the question. 

That’s why watching the GOP flail badly when wedged on abortion is proving so fascinating. Democratic candidates across the country are seizing the offensive and forcing Republicans to choose a side: stand with those who support extreme abortion restrictions or buck their own base and support a woman’s right to choose. Meanwhile, abortion rights are galvanizing voters, with 56 percent now saying that abortion will be “very important” in their midterm vote, up from 43 percent in March according to a recent Pew Research poll, driven by Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, 71 percent of whom now say abortion is “very important” to their vote.

Predictably, some GOP candidates are seeking to find a shaky middle ground, hoping to draw nuances around state versus national abortion laws. But this doesn’t quite work when there are many Republicans in Congress calling for a national abortion ban, even while Democrats are united in codifying the protections of Roe v. Wade. Like it or not for the GOP, abortion is on the ballot for candidates, whether they are in a state or national level race.

I have written a few times about the national shift against Republicans on the question of abortion. This was first evident in a referendum in deeply red Kansas, where voters rejected by a surprising 59 to 41 percent a constitutional amendment that would have removed privacy rights. The issue then showed up in data revealing women have been far outpacing men in key swing state new voter registrations particularly after Dobbs. The House race in NY-19 then confirmed that the red wave was crashing against a blue wall that is buttressed strongly by choice voters, with four special House elections since Dobbs showing shifts to the Democrats by between two and a half to six points. That large a shift, if sustained nationally, could keep the House majority in the hands of the Democrats.

The numbers and the national mood are now causing some curious reversals and semantic gymnastics among GOP candidates that are worth highlighting. In Arizona, senate hopeful Blake Masters, who once styled himself “100% pro-life” and took an extreme anti-abortion position during the primaries (even calling for a federal “personhood” law or amendment that recognized “unborn babies as human beings that may not be killed”) is now backpedaling furiously on abortion, scrubbing his website of these positions and instead now claiming in a new ad that he actually only supports a ban on late term or partial birth abortions, while seeking to paint his opponent as the true abortion extremist. 

Masters is no doubt hoping that the electorate will forget his real positions by November, but women aren’t likely to oblige him. Moreover, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is unlikely to let all that prevaricating simply slide. “If Blake Masters thinks that he can quietly delete passages from his website and disguise just how out of touch and dangerous his abortion stance is, he’s in for a rude awakening,” a Kelly spokesperson said.

But sticking to their guns on extreme abortion restrictions isn’t necessarily proving a winning formula either. In Florida, Sen. Marco Rubio recently suggested in an interview that he personally supports a total ban on abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. “I do not believe that the dignity and the worth of human life is tied to the circumstances of their conception,” Rubio said. He then hedged his words: “But I recognize that that's not a majority position.” When pressed directly on whether he supports a federal ban on abortion, Rubio punted, saying that while he believes that “we should be protecting human life from the moment of conception to the moment of birth,” the Republicans don’t have the numbers to pass such federal legislation now, he claimed, and anyway that question is best left to the states. 

The problem of course is, voters now recognize that their home states are often wildly out of step with what the electorate wants in terms of abortion rights. Holding up the right of the people to democratically define those rights in their states is an empty gesture in places like Florida that are heavily gerrymandered to ensure the election of GOP abortion extremists. Rubio’s opponent, Rep. Val Demings (D-FL), was quick to capitalize on their stark difference on the abortion question. Attaching a copy of his interview, Demings condemned Rubio’s position. “Marco Rubio is obsessed with taking away our freedoms. Losing the right to choose means women’s lives are at risk, doctors could be thrown in jail, and victims of rape and incest forced to carry the seed of their rapist. We will #RetireRubio and protect the right to choose,” Demings blasted in a tweet.

The midterm election season is only just getting underway, and it’s already clear abortion will be front and center all the way to Election Day on November 8. The Wall Street Journal took note of this in a candid OpEd, admitting that “Republicans are on the backfoot because they’re talking about abortion as if Roe were still the law, when it was easy to favor a total ban because it didn’t matter.” It continued, “Now the policy stakes are real, and Republicans will have to make clear what specific abortion limits they favor and why.” If the senate races in Arizona and Florida are any indication, Democrats are not going to make that easy at all for the GOP.