Republicans running for Senate ducked when pressed in debates across the country this month over abortion access, continuing to grapple with a key electoral liability that will leave their party in control of Congress in November. threatens to deny the White House.
The calculated effort to soften the Republican Party’s image on the hot-button issue began shortly after the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision that sparked a backlash against the party at the ballot box, giving Republicans crucial seats in the 2022 midterm elections. .
Since then, many Republicans have misrepresented or outright lied to voters about their record, dodging questions about extreme abortion bans currently on the books in states across the country.
For example, last week, conservative Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in a debate with his Democratic challenger, Representative Colin Allred, said: repeatedly avoided giving a direct answer to questions about his position on exceptions to the abortion ban for cases of rape and incest.
“Why do you keep asking me that?” Cruz asked the moderator at one point after not answering the question, before quickly pivoting to his support for states setting their own laws.
Nearly two dozen states have passed strict or near-total abortion bans, some with no exceptions for rape, incest, and the mother’s life. This has devastating consequences for many women, including in the US. Texas. Women have been denied care and left to bleed out in hospital parking lots or were forced to leave the state for care.
Advocating for states to make their own decisions about abortion, as the Supreme Court has ruled, necessarily means embracing the idea that some states could enact abortion restrictions without exception.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has repeatedly boasted about his role in rolling back federal abortion protections, has also grappled with questions about extreme state abortion bans. After initially criticizing Florida’s six-week abortion ban in his home state last month, he said announced that he would vote against a ballot measure aimed at repealing it.
“The people decide, and in many ways it’s beautiful to watch,” Trump said during a speech interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity last month.
In Nevada, a majority state where abortion is legal up to 24 weeks, Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown similarly floated his past support for abortion restrictions without exceptions for rape or incest during a debate with Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada last weekend. Brown, a businessman and U.S. military veteran, said he now supports these exceptions and vows not to support a national abortion ban that Democrats fear could come in the future.
“I would not support a national abortion ban,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t appreciate people misguiding this issue.”
Rosen, meanwhile, warned that Brown and other Republicans are hiding their positions on the issue to win election in November.
“He has a 10-year record of opposing any exception to abortion, even if it is[s] of rape or incest,” the senator said of her opponent during the debate last weekend. “If you don’t believe me, I have an oceanfront lot for sale on Las Vegas Boulevard.”
In Pennsylvania, another critical battleground state, Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick borrowed the language Democrats typically use when talking about women’s reproductive rights — namely, leaving out unelected officials — during his debate with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) last year. week.
“Courts shouldn’t decide, judges shouldn’t decide, people should decide,” McCormick said of abortion limits. He added: “And there are very different views between states. So I believe it is a state rights issue.”
However, in 2022, McCormick touted his staunch commitment to fighting abortion before the Supreme Court ruled on the repeal of Roe v. Wade. When asked during a Republican Party primary debate that year whether he would support exceptions, he said he believed in them in “very rare cases” when a woman’s life was in danger.
But it’s not just newcomers seeking political office who are now presenting themselves to voters as moderates on abortion. For example, Mike Rogers, a 14-year former Michigan congressman who is now running for Senate, tried to distance himself from his long record of voting for abortion restrictions during his debate with Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic candidate in the race.
After Rogers vowed to uphold Michigan’s abortion law, which allows the procedure up to 24 weeks into pregnancy, Slotkin called him out for his past record.
“He’s stuck his finger in the wind and said, ‘Now I can’t win if I don’t look good in this area,’” Slotkin said last week. “So he took thirty years of being unilaterally pro-life and never once broke with him, partly at this point. It’s not a topic of conversation for women. It’s our life, what matters is whether we bleed to death in a parking lot. It is who and when determines when we will have a family.”
She added: “Don’t trust him.”
Abortion is an issue where Democrats, who have struggled to combat voters’ perceptions of the economy and immigration, have a political advantage.
Support for legal abortion has increased since the Supreme Court ruling repealing Roe v. Wade, and more and more people believe their state should generally allow anyone to have an abortion for any reason, according to a U.S. Supreme Court investigation. poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The big question in this election is whether abortion will play as big a role as it did in the 2022 midterm elections, or whether voters will choose to prioritize other issues.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee did not return a request for comment.
Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said the Republican Senate candidates “voters have shown how little they know about one of the defining issues of this election: a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions.”
“Republican Senate candidates’ well-documented support for abortion bans and their callous disregard for women’s reproductive freedom dominates the final days of Senate races and will lead voters to reject them,” he added.
