Americana

The GOP’s slowly builds a post-Dobbs abortion platform

THE SCENE

Donald Trump was on friendly turf. WABC’s Sid Rosenberg introduced the former president on Tuesday with an ad for gold — “Donald Trump is not the only comeback story of 2024” — and thanks for being an “incredibly gracious host” in Florida. It was unfair, said Rosenberg, that people thought Trump didn’t talk about abortion — “that’s just not true.”

This was how Trump, after a year of bobbing and weaving, endorsed a 15-week federal abortion limit; “even hard-liners are agreeing,” he told Rosenberg. The same day, Ohio Republicans nominated state Rep. Derrick Merrin, who’d advanced a six-week state abortion ban, for a Toledo-area House seat; in Cincinnati, they nominated Orlando Sonza, who’d told a local Right to Life group that he opposed “abortion-on-demand from fertilization to birth.”

One month after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that fertilized embryos had the legal rights of children, Republicans have moved closer to a clear abortion message: a national 15-week limit and carve-outs for IVF.

That position is being built in fits and starts. It’s contradicted by the actions of individual incumbents and candidates — some on record supporting stiffer limits, some opposed right now to IVF. On Thursday, the Republican Study Committee released a budget document that praised the Life at Conception Act, creating yet another headache for RSC members who’d backed away from that bill over concerns that it would ban IVF. That position is also still backed in the GOPs official platform, which has long included support for a human life amendment and extending 14th Amendment protections to fetuses.

But the anti-abortion movement has also given Republicans space to figure this out. Candidates who signed pledges to support life at fertilization, and now don’t support the federal Life at Conception Act, have gotten no serious pressure from issue groups. During the Republican presidential primary, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America urged candidates to endorse a 15-week federal limit, only to watch every candidate who clearly did so drop out before voting began in Iowa. After Trump’s meandering 15-week answer, all was forgiven.

“President Trump is right: protecting babies from painful late-term abortions is a place of national consensus,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. “We challenge the Biden/Harris Administration and all Democrats to stop catering to the extreme Left and work with President Trump to enact the will of the people and eliminate painful late-term abortion — just like 47 out of 50 European countries do.”

DAVID’S VIEW

The most important development in the GOP’s messaging war is the soft touch of the anti-abortion movement, which is more interested in exercising power than in language games.

The best example of this: Lagging support for the Life at Conception Act, which lost 30 House co-sponsors from the last Congress to this one. California Rep. Michelle Steel co-sponsored it last year, delayed co-sponsoring it this year, signed on after the New York Times highlighted her apparent flip-flop — then withdrew her sponsorship after the Alabama decision, explaining that “it could create confusion about my support for the blessings of having children through IVF.”

What was Steel’s punishment? Nothing, really; she won 55% of the vote in this month’s all-party California primary. Anti-abortion groups aren’t attacking Republicans who say they support life at conception, but don’t sign onto bills that would protect it. In New York, Rep. Andrew Garbarino told the Long Island Coalition for Life he’d support “legislation to protect innocent human life from conception to natural death.” Asked about Garbarino not signing onto the existing bill that would do that, a spokesperson for the coalition showed no concern.

“The LICL doesn’t generally ask legislators/candidates if they’ll sign on to a specific bill,” they said in an email. “We may find out the position of a legislator/candidate indirectly. We encourage pro-lifers to contact their legislators asking them to vote for pro-life legislation (and against pro-abortion legislation).”

Other Republicans who’ve bailed on the bill have explained that they support exceptions, with no backlash yet from social conservatives back home. Asked why they sponsored it in 2022 but not now, two Republicans in seats that Joe Biden won had similar answers.

“I didn’t sign on this Congress because it doesn’t adequately address the concerns I had about exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother,” California Rep. David Valadao said in a statement. “The Dobbs decision decided this was an issue left to the states and that’s where I believe policy on the issue should be decided.”

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon said that he wanted the bill “to include more specific language to clear up misconceptions about the legislation,” and didn’t sign on again for that reason. “The author’s intent was not to restrict abortions or IVF, but rather to be a statement of principle,” he said in a statement. “Seeing how the Dems distorted the bill last election, I asked that the bill be more carefully written to preclude confusion or distortion.”

And West Virginia Rep. Alex Mooney, who sponsored the bill, took a forgiving stance on the members who’d backed away. “House Republicans realize that the media hysteria over the Alabama IVF decision was overblown and did nothing to prohibit use of IVF treatment,” he said in a statement. “My bill does nothing to ban IVF treatment. Destroying or neglecting human embryos is not essential for IVF. The Life at Conception Act calls for embryos to be treated with dignity and humanity. I am proud that a majority of the House Republican Conference once again believes life begins at conception. The pro-life spirit is alive and well in the Republican Conference.”

THE VIEW FROM DEMOCRATS

Democrats have won a string of races, including last month’s special election on Long Island, by pinning down Republican candidates on abortion. They’re confident that this works. Ohio’s primaries this week, which produced nominees whose abortion records go beyond the 15-week promise, made them more confident.

“They’re trying to massage their language,” said Democratic Ohio Rep. Greg Landsman, who’s running against Orlando Sonza. “There’s no way around the fact that they still want a national abortion ban. They still want politicians — i.e., themselves — to make these decisions, taking away this core freedom from patients and their doctors.”

In the Toledo-based 9th district, where Republicans nominated Merrin to face Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Democrats said that Merrin’s work on the six-week limit would be an albatross for him in November.

“There is no short supply of extremism or corruption in Ohio’s Republican controlled state government,” Kaptur’s campaign said in a statement. “Getting between families and medical professionals is just another example of extremist overreach.”

In the competitive 13th district in and around Akron, Republicans nominated ex-legislator Kevin Coughlin to face Rep. Emilia Sykes. The congresswoman, who served with Coughlin in Columbus, said that his record there would be hard to spin away, along with his opposition to last year’s reproductive freedom amendment, which passed locally by a landslide.

“My opponent specifically said that he didn’t think people really knew what they were voting for,” said Sykes. “My constituents are not stupid. How dare you? You have a lot of nerve to say such a thing about the people in this district who you want to serve.”

NOTABLE

• In Vox, Rachel M. Cohen marshaled evidence that Democrats might not benefit from abortion politics in 2024, which disproportionately moved “the kinds of voters likely to cast ballots in midterm and special elections.”
• In the Washington Post, Meagan Vasquez looked at how Democrats were using the Republican Study Committee’s budget against the GOP, highlighting elements that swing seat Republicans might not want to run on.

Ohio. Trump-endorsed candidates cruised in Tuesday’s primaries, and the decline of Democrats in eastern Ohio got steeper.

Luxury car dealer Bernie Moreno swept every county in the GOP’s U.S. Senate race, beating state Sen. Matt Dolan by 18 points. Turnout overall mirrored the turnout of two years ago, with slightly more than 1 million votes in the GOP primary and around half as many in the non-competitive Democratic primary. And in northwest Ohio, Trump-endorsed Derek Merrin drubbed ex-legislator Craig Reidel, who shed endorsements after he was caught attacking Trump on tape.

In 2022, Democrats were surprised to see more votes cast for Republicans in Mahoning County, a generational party stronghold and the home base of Democrats’ US. Senate nominee — 20,332 for Republicans, 15,845 for Democrats. The gap grew this year. There were 21,306 votes cast in Mahoning in the GOP presidential primary, and 13,925 cast for Democrats.

Illinois. Two House incumbents held on in Tuesday’s primaries, with Rep. Mike Bost barely turning back a challenger from his right; he won by a 2-point margin, as 2022 gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey dominated him in Bailey’s old legislative district. Trump endorsed Bost, while Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz endorsed Bailey; Gaetz will get another crack at ousting a colleague in May, when Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales faces Brandon Herrera in a runoff.

Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis defended his seat from four challengers, including Kina Collins, a progressive activist who nearly ousted him two years ago. That surprise coaxed more candidates into this race, splitting the anti-Davis vote, while AIPAC’s United Democracy PAC drubbed Collins over her support for “defunding the police” in 2020. Progressives also lost on a tax reform measure backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, which would have raised fees on sales of properties worth more than $1 million. Two days later, Johnson’s chief of staff resigned, a double setback for a mayor attacked from the right and left over the city’s handling of migrants and asylum-seekers bussed in from Texas.

Tuesday’s other test for Chicago progressives was too close to call, as of Friday morning. Fewer than 12,000 votes, out of nearly 500,000 counted, separated front-runner Eileen O’Neill Burke from Clayton Harris III in the race for Cook County State’s Attorney. Retiring incumbent Kim Foxx had been one of the first reform prosecutors elected in any major urban area after the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement; O’Neill Burke had run on reversing some, but not all, of her progressive policies.

Summer Lee for Congress, “Showing Up and Delivering for All of Us.” Two years ago, when AIPAC and allies tried to keep Rep. Summer Lee out of Congress, their advertising warned that she’d be a disloyal Democrat. Lee, losing ground, regained it with ads that showed her standing with Biden. Now that she has a record — and another opponent calling her disloyal to Biden — she’s built on that with a list of funding she brought back to Pittsburgh and its suburbs “while not missing a day of work.”

Hovde for Wisconsin, “Can’t Be Bought.” Democrats tried to muddy up the GOP’s multi-millionaire Senate recruit before he got into the race, by attacking his wealth and his property in California. “I’ve worked hard, been fortunate,” Eric Hovde says in his second spot, following in the steps of Michael Bloomberg and Trump by saying he’s too wealthy to need “special interest” money. “I’ll donate my entire salary to a Wisconsin charity every year,” he says, giving a thumbs up as a restaurant crowd applauds him.

Truth and Courage PAC, “Open Borders Colin Allred.” Democratic Rep. Colin Allred won his House seat in 2018, when Trump was president and the idea of a U.S.-Mexico border wall was unpopular with non-Republicans. At candidate forums that year, Allred called it a “racist wall,” said that “the symbol of this country cannot be a fence with barbed wire on top of it,” and added that if it was built, “my generation will be the one that tears it down.”

Biden’s birthplace is the swing state where he runs strongest; in the same poll release, CNN/SSRS finds Trump well ahead of Biden in Michigan. Pennsylvania is close despite Trump advantages on voters’ biggest priorities — a 14-point lead on “the economy,” an 18-point lead on “immigration.” That’s partly because a plurality of voters believe that the charges facing Trump over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election “disqualify” him from the presidency.

In every poll of Maryland’s U.S. Senate race, Larry Hogan is leading. In every poll, he’s the best-liked candidate — here with a 64% overall favorable rating, and a 61% favorable rating among Democrats. So, why are national Democrats publicly confident that they’ll beat him and hold the seat?

By a 20-point margin, Maryland voters say they want Democrats to control the Senate next year, and most Democrats don’t know much about Rep. David Trone or Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Among all voters, 46% of voters have no opinion of Trone, and 58% have no opinion of Alsobrooks. The advantage for Trone with worried Democrats is that the founder of Total Wine is so wealthy that he can spend what the party needs to introduce himself and chip away at Hogan. Gov. Wes Moore, who’s endorsed Alsobrooks, told Semafor this week that she can compete if she wins the nomination: “I think that the energy that the county executive will be able to provide, and I think the fundraising support that will come if she wins the nomination, is going to be real.”

There’s been a pattern all month in polling of states with Senate races and competitive presidential elections. Trump runs ahead of the GOP ticket; Biden runs behind incumbent Democratic senators. Trump leads Biden by 5 points in NVPOP’s polling, but both Sam Brown and Jim Marchant — the candidate preferred by national Republicans, and a perennial candidate who lost in 2020 and 2022 — run 10 points behind him. In both match-ups, around 40% of independents are undecided, giving both Rosen and the Republicans room to grow.

Senate. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez announced Thursday that he wouldn’t file for the Democratic primary, but might “pursue my candidacy as an independent Democrat” if he’s exonerated of his corruption charges before the June 4 filing deadline. He broke the news in a nine-and-a-half minute video, recapping his career, declaring himself “innocent,” and asking voters to “withhold judgment until justice takes place.”

Spokesmen for the GOP and Democratic senatorial committees reacted with a shrug. “We’re keeping a close eye on New Jersey,” said Mike Berg, the communications director for the NRSC. “Democrats have won every New Jersey Senate race since 1978 and 2024 will be no different,” said David Bergstein, the communications director for the DSCC. Polling, including a Monmouth University survey this month, found the senator’s support collapsing since the indictment, and he didn’t bother competing in Democratic county conventions this year.

On June 11, North Dakota voters will get to decide how old is too old to represent them in Washington. The Congressional Age Limits ballot measure, which would bar anyone from seeking office if they’d be 81 by the end of a term, qualified for an up-or-down vote, despite warnings that a court would inevitably knock it down. Jared Hendrix, the Republican term-limits activist who chairs the campaign, talked with Americana about why he’s doing it and why he’s hopeful it’ll stick.

Americana: What was the origin of this? How did you settle on 81 as the age limit?

Jared Hendrix: Well, you can look at the age limits that already exist. For most state judges, it’s 70. The national polling shows support for political age limits starting at 65, but once you get up to 80, the support is just overwhelming. So, we decided to pick a number with overwhelming support.

We understand that people might go on to serve in Congress after they’ve had a successful career, and they’re at a point in life where they can try something else. We recognize that people at a later stage in life have a lot of life wisdom they can bring to the table. But if you look at the median age of retirement, it’s 64. So, our limit is 16 years after the median age of retirement. We think that’s reasonable.

Americana: Since U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, it’s assumed that any state restriction on federal office seekers is unconstitutional. I already see people saying, hey, this is going to get struck down. Why wouldn’t it be, because this is a new Supreme Court?

Jared Hendrix: I can’t speculate too much about the courts, but there’s certainly a reasonable chance for some type of challenge. We firmly believe that we’re within our state’s rights to propose this. Congress could act, but it hasn’t, and there’s obvious self-interest in why.

Americana: How easy was it to get signatures for this? How excited were people to sign it?

Jared Hendrix: Anecdotally, it seemed to be pretty easy to sell to people. It’s just like term limits — they’re not popular with people in political circles who get reelected over and over, into their older years, but they’re popular with average people. Even if someone accepts the argument that term limits are not perfect because bureaucrats will stay in office, that’s all the more reason to have age limits because an overall decline in the ability of our representatives, physically and mentally, only strengthens the influence of bureaucrats and Capitol staff.

Americana: How do you think it’s affected our politics to have this many elderly people in office? You were getting signatures during the senescence of Dianne Feinstein, after Mitch McConnell froze in public, so that drew attention.

Jared Hendrix: I can’t see into peoples’ hearts and minds on why they signed, but look at the results! We’re passing on trillions and trillions of dollars in debt. We’re getting involved in a lot of overseas conflicts. We’re seeing the effect on our veterans’ suicide rates. We’ve got legislators putting in place policies that they’re never going to live under the consequences of. The national debt is going to cripple future generations, but it won’t ever affect them.

Americana: Did you look into the possibility of setting an age limit for presidential candidates?

Jared Hendrix: No, I think there are far too many legal questions about that, because you’re dealing with a candidate who would be standing for election in multiple states. It was a cleaner, easier, simpler argument to just say we’re going to deal with North Dakota’s three congressional representatives.

Americana: You caucused for Donald Trump this month. Given all these voter attitudes, why do you think we ended up with two presidential candidates who’ll be in their 80s by the time their next term ends?

Jared Hendrix: Boy, you could probably have an hour-long discussion on all the reasons why. The short version is that just because people might support a structural reform, like term limits or age limits, it doesn’t mean they’ll oppose someone who’s right for that moment. That’s just being a good critical thinker. But this gets to a very good argument for what we’re doing. A lot of times, candidates get in and get a significant amount of support, just because they have the power of incumbency and name ID. That really makes our argument for us.

• three days until the start of Trump’s trial in New York
• 74 days until the independent candidate filing deadline in New Jersey
• 115 days until the Republican National Convention
• 150 days until the Democratic National Convention
• 234 days until the 2024 presidential election