Some analysts attributed the recent Republican election defeats to former President Donald Trump, but it is more likely that the GOP’s recent losses are linked to their stance on limiting abortion, a position they have found challenging to define since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade more than a year ago.
The GOP’s unclear communication on abortion post-Roe may lead to dire consequences for the party in 2024.
The defeat of Republicans in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania indicates that abortion is a significant issue among voters. Those who turned out on Tuesday rejected the party’s attempts to restrict the procedure, even at 15 weeks, despite it being supported by a slim majority of Americans.
University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato stated, “Elections all around the country had one overriding message: The pro-abortion rights majority is still angry about the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.”
Democrats now see the GOP’s abortion predicament as paving the way to victory in 2024, when the House, Senate, and White House are up for grabs.
Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, stated, “Every time MAGA Republicans bring their abortion bans to the ballot box, they lose. Americans are making our voices heard and we believe medical decisions are between a patient and doctor — not a patient and a GOP politician on a power trip.”
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe in June 2022 ended federally legalized abortion and returned decisions about the procedure to the states. Two election cycles later, Republicans are beginning to see the high court ruling, long sought by their party, hinder their success at the polls.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and former Republican presidential nominee, shared, “I don’t think it’s a big secret but in many states, abortion is not a winning issue for Republicans. The winning issue relates to the economy and the cost of living. People are suffering high costs of food, gasoline, housing, health care, and they want to see people who can improve their lives. So focusing on abortion didn’t turn out to be a big winner.”
Republicans lost the governor’s race in Kentucky and the Virginia statehouse. In Ohio, voters easily passed a citizen-sponsored measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. In Pennsylvania, Democrat and abortion-rights advocate Dan McCaffery won the open seat on the state supreme court.
Tuesday’s losses for the GOP come a year after Republicans had a similar defeat in the midterm elections, where the abortion issue helped sink GOP candidates in key swing-state races.
In Virginia, a proposed 15-week ban on abortion drove enough Democratic voters to the polls Tuesday to prevent Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s takeover of the statehouse.
Instead, voters flipped the Republican-led Senate and returned full control of the legislature to Democrats, blocking the GOP from implementing future abortion restrictions and reducing Mr. Youngkin’s allure as a rising GOP star.
A July AP-NORC poll found that 51% of adults support keeping abortion legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. But the proposed restriction didn’t resonate with voters in Virginia, a once-red state that has leaned increasingly Democratic.
Mr. Youngkin campaigned on the 15-week limit and sought to define the Democratic position on abortion as extreme and without any limits at all.
In October, his political action committee spent $1.4 million on an ad campaign to dispel the claim by Democrats that a GOP-controlled statehouse would pursue an outright abortion ban, which under current Virginia law is permitted for up to 26 weeks.
In proposing the 15-week limit with…
