Is Trump Alienating Pro-Lifers?
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After weeks of taking the heat for the GOP’s underwhelming midterm results, former president Donald Trump tried to shift the blame onto an unlikely scapegoat over the weekend: pro-lifers.
“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
He added:
I was 233-20! It was the “abortion issue,” poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters. Also, the people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again. Plus, Mitch stupid $’s!
NR’s Ramesh Ponnuru said it best: “This is a pile of nonsense atop a kernel of truth.”
It is true that a number of candidates who supported banning abortion without exceptions for rape and incest lost: Tudor Dixon in Michigan’s gubernatorial race, Tim Michels in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race (though along the way he reversed his position), Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania’s race for governor, and Herschel Walker in Georgia’s U.S. Senate race.
However, another commonality among these candidates is that they were all backed by Trump — a fact that circles backs to the very criticisms that the former president sought to avoid. That those candidates were unsuccessful likely says more about their ties to Trump and their quality as candidates than their position on abortion alone, particularly given the success of Republican governors who signed bans or partial bans on abortion in Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas.
While Trump sought to absolve himself of blame for the midterms, it’s possible he only alienated a key portion of his supporters.
Shawn Carney, the CEO and president of 40 Days for Life, said in a statement to National Review that his group “did not go away” after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and that the organization expanded across the country, reaching a record 622 cities.
“During a time when Pence and DeSantis are rapidly gaining popularity among pro-life people, this is one of the dumbest things Donald Trump has ever done politically,” Carney said. “And he did it to a group that elected him in 2016 after the death of Scalia. Abortion proved to be a political loser for weak Republicans who failed to defend life. But strong Republicans like Abbott, Kemp, and DeSantis, who didn’t apologize for being on the right side of science and history, were successful.”
Lila Rose, president of Live Action, also rejected Trump’s comments in a series of tweets.
“The fault of midterm losses has ZERO to do with the pro-life cause & more to do with poor election strategies that the Republican Party has been employing for years,” she wrote. “Hardcore pro-lifers won re-election in states across the country; bad candidates & bad campaign strategies lost.”
She added: “Trump is way out of line here on life. He does not have a pulse on where his potential base is — as many believed he has in the past. This kind of nonsense will be a losing political strategy for him.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America responded in a statement saying: “The approach to winning on abortion in federal races, proven for a decade is this: state clearly the ambitious consensus pro-life position and contrast that with the extreme view of Democrat opponents. We look forward to hearing that position fully articulated by Mr. Trump and all presidential candidates.”
When Trump officially launched his campaign in November, the group praised his record on abortion, saying he “raised the bar for what it means to be a pro-life presidential candidate and president,” and described the 2024 election as the “human rights battle of our time.”
Former vice president Mike Pence, who himself is seen as a potential 2024 contender, jumped into the fray to endorse SBA Pro-Life America’s recent statement.
Well Said @sbaprolife!🇺🇸 https://t.co/6hfDroJpOr
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) January 2, 2023
Last month, GOP pollster Wes Anderson told reporters that Republicans did not see the predicted wins on Election Night because the party failed to capture the independent vote, offered no value proposition for voters, failed to combat Democrats’ abortion messaging, and had a lack of resources. His conclusion was based on the results of a postelection national survey conducted on behalf of Heritage Action between November 16 and 20.
Democrats and allies spent a whopping $450 million in advertising on abortion, according to the Heritage Action analysis. Ninety-five percent of those ads attacked the Republican Party or Republican candidates.
Republicans fell far behind on abortion messaging, with the GOP and its allies spending just $10 million to fight back against Democrats’ abortion messaging. Abortion was the one issue that respondents said they trusted Democrats to handle over Republicans, 49 percent to 39 percent.
Among those who said abortion was important to their vote, 38 percent voted Republican and 58 percent voted Democrat. “I can say with empirical facts that we ceded almost all the ground on abortion to the Democrats,” he said. “We did not engage in the fight.”
Asked to respond to Trump’s comments on pro-lifers and the midterms, Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, told National Review:
The 2022 election did not produce the “red wave” conservatives were expecting, not because of the issues they focused on, but instead because they fell short in combating the Left’s misleading narrative on issues like abortion. The reality is that the Left’s support for extreme proposals like abortion on demand are dramatically misaligned with the views of the American people. Conservatives should continue their fight to protect life, but must articulate their position more clearly and contrast their stance with the radical approach taken by Democrats.
Chelsey Youman, national legislative adviser with Human Coalition Action, similarly said it is clear that “voters rewarded candidates who staked out bold pro-life policy stances and who skillfully defended these positions.”
“So-called ‘pro-life’ candidates who ran away from the issue, or those who were woefully underprepared to talk about it, were met with defeat,” Youman said in a statement to National Review. “The lesson is that we need candidates who will take bold stances for life and who are shrewd enough to convince undecided voters about the value of human life.”
Around NR
• Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s second term will offer him a chance to contrast real legislative progress against Trump’s “ranting on Truth Social,” Jim Geraghty writes:
DeSantis enacting constitutional carry, another sweeping round of tax cuts, and perhaps a heartbeat law on abortion would be striking.
• Michael Brendan Dougherty asks why Trump, who he says will be remembered as the most pro-life president in history, is distancing himself from his greatest victory with his recent comments:
Trump produced a solid list of justices and said that if he were elected president he would nominate justices from that list. He promised to overturn Roe. And he went further than any Republican nominee seeking the presidency ever had in describing with evident physical disgust and repulsion what a late-term abortion involved. Trump then nominated three conservative justices, and all of them voted to overturn Roe when the chance was provided to them.
• As the chaos in the House was set to continue for a second day, Trump made a last-minute plea to GOP holdouts to support Kevin McCarthy’s failing bid for the speakership, Ari Blaff writes.
• Charles C. W. Cooke argues that a McCarthy loss at this point would be a loss for Trump as well:
In my estimation, such a development would harm Trump in two ways. First, it would show that Trump-sycophants such as Matt Gaetz are no longer willing to do what their hero demands — even if, as a general matter, they express support for him. Second, it would put Trump on the side of the “establishment” (which he is!) against the rebels.
