WASHINGTON — Republicans still haven’t solved the quandary of how to talk to voters about abortion, still stinging from their midterm losses and with the White House at stake in less than two years.
Conversations with a dozen GOP candidates, former White House aides, activists and lobbyists show the issue continues to bedevil the party even after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Conservatives who celebrated that ruling are weighing what is politically possible to restrict access to abortion without repelling key voters like suburban women, independents and young people.
The GOP ceded this ground in the 2022 midterms to Democrats, whose own furious base was galvanized following the Supreme Court’s decision last summer to end 50 years of constitutionally protected abortion rights.
On the campaign trail, some Republicans avoided the topic entirely while some endorsed total bans, with no exceptions. The reality that hit them was that a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
So with the 2024 race already on, Republicans’ strategy is to paint Democrats as the true extremists, try to put them on the defensive and avoid their own schisms from spilling out in public.
“When you run from abortion and don’t talk about it, you forfeit the issue to the other side,” Marc Short, chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, said in an interview. “We have a responsibility, as a party, to explain our position and do it in a winsome way that is not judgmental.”
This ongoing tension within the GOP was on display during Friday’s “March for Life” rally in Washington, an event that typically draws thousands of anti-abortion advocates.
It was be the first time so many abortion opponents and groups have gathered since the court rolled back federal abortion rights in June, a goal conservatives coveted for decades, and an opinion that was unprecedentedly leaked last May.
On Thursday, the issue was thrust back into the spotlight after the court said it had failed to identify the culprit.
The topic energized Democrats, giving President Joe Biden’s party six months worth of momentum through November’s elections that saw Democrats expand their majority in the Senate and suffer narrower-than-expected losses in the House.
Republican governors are pursuing various changes, making the country even more of a patchwork of abortion laws that differ by state.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin supports a ban on abortions after 15 weeks with exceptions, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would sign legislation restricting abortion once doctors can detect fetal cardiac activity, typically around the sixth week after conception. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem banned abortion in her state unless a pregnant woman’s life is endangered.
Pence’s think tank, Advancing American Freedom, put out a framework this week with suggestions for further state and federal restrictions on the procedure.
The problem is so dire for Republicans that Trump, who became the first sitting president to address the March for Life gathering in 2020, in recent weeks engaged in a public back-and-forth with anti-abortion activists over blame for the disappointing GOP election performance.
Trump has said that Republicans should allow exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. He criticized the party’s handling of the issue after several of his hand-picked candidates lost key races.
Trump’s three Supreme Court picks are credited with deepening the court’s conservative bent, culminating in the rollback of abortion rights.
“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the midterms,” Trump wrote in a Jan. 1 Truth Social post. “It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans.”
Republican operatives suspect the party may eventually coalesce around a 15-week ban on abortion, as Senator Lindsey Graham has proposed, with exceptions. Meanwhile, advocates say the GOP needs to talk about help and resources for pregnant women.
“This is a cultural reset,” Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America, which opposes abortion rights, said about the Supreme Court ruling. “We won the right to go and advocate for our position and convince people of our position on a state-by-state basis. That is what we are working out as a nation.”
But abortion restrictions have helped to boost Democrats’ political prospects by energizing female voters, liberals and young people.
Voters aged 18-29, in particular, helped fuel the Democratic advantage, according to an analysis of 2022 exit polls done by the Brookings Institution.
Exit polls showed that 47% of female voters said they were angry about the Supreme Court overturning Roe, and that 83% of those women voted for a Democrat, according to the analysis.
Democrats continue to emphasize their support for abortion access, with Vice President Kamala Harris scheduled to speak in Florida on Sunday to commemorate Roe’s 50th anniversary.
The majority of Americans support legal abortion, with 61% saying it should be legal in all or most cases and 37% saying it should be illegal, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Some Republicans view public opinion trends as a reason the party should move away from talking about the topic, and weren’t happy to see the Republican-led House spending one of its first full weeks in session passing a series of anti-abortion measures.
Republicans “were put in charge of the House because of inflation, crime and border security,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “I’d like to see more focus on those issues.”
