The Memo: Trump’s evasiveness on abortion ban raises questions with conservatives

Former President Trump is, so far, dodging the issue of whether he would support a national abortion ban.

It’s an evasiveness that could ultimately benefit Trump in a general election — if he gets that far. But it holds dangers for him among the religious conservatives who make up a significant proportion of the Republican primary electorate.

Trump, speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference Saturday, talked in vague terms about a “vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life” — but the question of what that role might be was never sketched out.

That was a disappointment to some conservatives, since it came after speculation that Trump might indeed back such a ban.

The failure to do so places his position in stark contrast with his own former vice president, Mike Pence, who told the same conference that contenders for the GOP nomination should support a 15-week ban as a “minimum nationwide standard.”

Trump’s history on abortion is complicated.

It includes everything from his 1999 description of himself as “very pro-choice” to suggesting, in a 2016 campaign interview with Chris Matthews, that women who had abortions should face “some form” of punishment.

Trump appointed the three Supreme Court Justices who helped the court overturn Roe v. Wade — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. 

In his Saturday speech to the group of religious conservatives, Trump boasted that his action on the Supreme Court made him “the most pro-life president in American history.”

Even so, at the start of this year, Trump contended that the reason for the GOP’s underwhelming performance in last November’s midterm elections was the “abortion issue” being “poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions.”

That remark caused tremors among social conservatives, especially since he made the point in a Truth Social post where he was also arguing that he bore no culpability for his party’s disappointing election performance.

Many on the right have not forgotten that moment — which makes them especially sensitive to Trump’s refusal to take a clearer position on a nationwide ban.

“Trump wrongly blamed pro-life voters, perhaps the largest and most loyal voting bloc the GOP has had for 50 years, for the 2022 election disappointment. He has been a self-imposed squish on the issue that should be his strong suit this entire calendar year so far,” Steve Deace, an Iowa-based radio personality who has a national profile among social conservatives, told this column.

Regarding Trump’s Faith and Freedom Coalition speech, Deace asserted that Trump “still didn’t offer any specifics” but acknowledged that “at least he didn’t stupidly dunk on the base again.”

The latest twists in the abortion debate feed right into the question of whether Trump is vulnerable among religious conservatives generally.

To be sure, there is no way Trump could enjoy his current commanding lead in GOP primary polls unless he retained significant support among Christian conservatives. 

An NBC News poll released Sunday saw him draw the support of 51 percent of Republican primary voters, well clear of the 22 percent supporting his closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Pence, in third place, was way behind, on 7 percent.

Back in 2016, Trump had early struggles with religious conservatives. 

He lost that year’s Iowa caucuses to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), for example. Self-described “born-again or evangelical Christians” made up almost two-thirds of all caucus-goers in Iowa, according to an entrance poll, and favored Cruz over Trump by 12 points.

But Trump’s support among evangelicals grew as the Republican primary wore on. 

Once he became the nominee, rumors that Christian conservatives would be hesitant to back a thrice-married nominee who had been caught on tape boasting about grabbing women’s genitals proved unfounded. 

Exit polls from the 2016 presidential election saw white born-again or evangelical Christians vote for Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton 80 percent to 16 percent — a bigger margin than 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, a Mormon, had enjoyed over then-President Obama.

This time around, DeSantis has hit Trump more than once on the abortion issue. DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban in his state earlier this year and, in May, complained Trump “won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”

Earlier this month, DeSantis said in a Christian Broadcasting Network interview that he was “surprised” that Trump had called the ban “too harsh.”

Whether the effort to attack from the right gets traction with conservative voters remains to be seen.

But it’s notable that DeSantis’s support for the six-week ban reportedly caused unease with some of the governor’s big financial backers, who are worried that it would be a serious drag in a general election.

A Gallup poll released earlier this month found a record-high of 69 percent of Americans believing that abortion should be legal in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the same poll, 61 percent said that the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade had been a “bad thing.”

Conservatives argue, nonetheless, that Trump’s dodging on a nationwide abortion ban would be problematic for any other candidate.

Trump, of course, is not any other candidate.

“For any other politician, I could answer this question very easily. But because it’s Trump, it gets difficult,” said Rick Tyler, who served as Cruz’s communications director in the 2016 campaign.

“It would affect Trump if more people were willing to call him on it.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.