Republican senators are looking for a way to avoid the political hit they took on abortion rights in the 2022 midterm election, when they suffered a net loss of one seat, as Senate Democrats ramp up to make it a top issue in 2024.
Republicans think they have a great opportunity to recapture the Senate next year, as Democrats must defend 23 seats, including vulnerable incumbents in Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Senate Republicans only have 10 seats up for reelection and no vulnerable incumbents to worry about.
But Senate Republican strategists warn their hopes of winning back the majority in 2024 could be derailed by the abortion debate, as they believe happened last year.
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Strategists say the issue was a major factor last year in Senate races in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, which Democrats won.
“It’s true that abortion was the chief inhibiting factor for preventing Republicans from gaining an even bigger majority in the House, and of the Senate seats where we came up short last cycle the only way we can win this cycle is if we don’t let an issue like that pull voters away from our party,” said one Republican strategist who requested anonymity to discuss party strategy.
“In the Senate, Republicans have a huge opportunity to get the majority back, but suburban women voters will not vote for our candidates if they are turned off by what they feel are extreme views,” the strategist said.
“Any state where Republicans have trouble with suburban voters because of the Trump brand, they had double trouble with suburban voters because of abortion politics, and it was for no reason because there is no chance a federal ban on abortion happens, ever,” the source said.
Senate Republicans are now as divided as they were in 2022 over whether to ignore the issue and leave it to state legislatures to decide or whether to rally behind a 15-week federal abortion ban.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) says abortion policy should be left to the states and that Congress shouldn’t have a role to play since it’s highly unlikely any federal abortion ban could muster 60 votes to pass the Senate.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, rejects McConnell’s position and argues that presidential candidates should embrace a federal abortion ban.
He is planning to reintroduce legislation that would ban abortions at 15 weeks.
His proposal still gives states the freedom to impose stricter bans that would take effect during earlier stages of pregnancy.
“Some Republicans say abortion is a states’ rights issue. I reject that,” Graham told reporters last month in Charleston, according to The Post and Courier.
He argues that abortion is “a human rights issue” and argues that Republican presidential candidates need to take a stand.
“I think there’s a role in protecting the unborn in Washington,” he said, comparing it to the debate over slavery in the 1800s.
But some Republican strategists are trying to wave Graham off from pushing a 15-week abortion ban into the national spotlight again.
They argue that debating abortion policy in Congress will play into Senate Democrats’ political playbook.
“I firmly believe that there is no position on abortion that will ever be accepted as legitimate in both Mississippi and Massachusetts, so I think the wiser course of action is to let the state legislatures decide, but that’s a debatable proposition,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster and strategist.
“If they’re going to argue for one national position by Congress, it needs to be something close to consensus middle ground for the country. Seems like that’s somewhere around a ban after 15 or 16 weeks with exceptions for severe cases, like the life of the mother,” he said.
Ayres argues that Graham’s proposal “wasn’t really a national 15-week ban,” because it would allow states to ban abortions earlier than that stage of pregnancy.
Graham unveiled his bill to ban abortions after 15 weeks nationwide in September, before the November midterm election, which some Republican strategists at the time thought was a bad idea.
“It was awful,” the Republican strategist who requested anonymity said of Graham’s proposal. “From a campaign practitioner’s standpoint, it was awful.”
Some Republicans argue that pushing GOP lawmakers to embrace a national ban is a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t give Republican candidates enough space to advocate for their own deeply held convictions.
“The idea that you’re going to say, ‘I’m going to find the national consensus’ and not give any hint about what the national consensus might be is not going to cut it. Democrats will wrap you around the axle. Try to say what you really believe,” Ayres said.
He said GOP candidates should say, “let’s do what the Supreme Court allowed and that’s let the state legislatures to decide it.”
A second Republican strategist, however, backed up Graham’s approach to the polarizing issue.
“Lindsey Graham is right. Democrats are going to run on abortion no matter what, any Republican who wants to win needs to take a stand on the issue instead of letting Democrats define them,” said the strategist, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive party strategy.
Senate Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) have generally played things safe ahead of next year’s election by having a limited legislative agenda while talking up their accomplishments from 2021 and 2022.
The one notable exception to their play-it-safe strategy is the issue of abortion. Democratic senators sought to put it in the spotlight last month to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.
Senate Democrats sought unanimous consent to pass four bills protecting rights related to women’s health care and abortion.
One proposal would protect the right to contraception; another the freedom to travel across state lines to obtain an abortion; a third would give legal protection for doctors who provide abortions to women who travel across state lines to evade abortion restrictions; and a fourth would protect people’s online health and location data from being used against them for obtaining an abortion.
Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said the Dobbs decision had a “huge impact” on the 2022 midterm election.
“It was a twofer — it mobilized record numbers of young people and record numbers of Democrats, particularly Democratic younger women, and then it also helped us set up these races as a choice rather than a referendum,” she said.
And to win in 2024, “we need to make this a choice, not a referendum,” she added, noting the importance of highlighting the difference between candidates on abortion policies.
Lake emphasized that more than 20 states have taken steps since the Dobbs decision to limit access to abortions.
Most abortions are now banned in 14 states. And in some states, such as Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, tougher proposed restrictions on abortion are being battled over in court.
With President Biden’s approval numbers stuck in the low 40s, Democrats are looking to generate voter enthusiasm by highlighting new abortion restrictions states have enacted since the court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“The Democrats would love nothing more than congressional Republicans to raise the discussion of abortion instead of inflation, crime or other issues that they are weak on going into a presidential election,” said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist and former Senate Republican leadership aide.
Brandon Scholz, a Republican strategist based in Wisconsin, which was a Senate battleground in 2022 and may be again in 2024, said abortion is one of the Democrats’ best issues heading into next year’s election.
“There’s two things Democrats need: Donald Trump and the abortion issue,” he said.
But he acknowledged abortion is a tricky issue for Republicans to navigate because “it is an issue that stands alone” and can’t be easily countered by raising Biden’s handling of the economy or other issues on which Republicans poll more favorably.
“Today I think Republicans still have to figure out how they’re going to address it because Republicans are split. Some want no action, some want exceptions, some want even tougher language. There’s no consensus among Republican Party members,” he said.