The Abortion Albatross

Conservatives refuse to admit the reality behind the latest GOP electoral defeat

Election Night 2023 was absolutely brutal for Republicans. They lost a gubernatorial race in red Kentucky. They barely won a gubernatorial race in red Mississippi. They lost the state assembly in purplish Virginia. And a referendum to protect abortion won overwhelmingly in red Ohio.

How could this happen? Voters overwhelmingly hate the policies of Joe Biden and his party. Voters don’t like the sluggish economy, open borders, rising crime, and global chaos wrought by the Democrats. The president’s approval rating is tanking, and he’s losing in polls to a man criminally indicted four times over the last year. Democrats have nothing to offer voters at the moment. Republicans should be able to win elections simply by not being Democrats.

Yet, Republicans lost another election. The answer is simple this time. Abortion is to blame.

Abortion also helped Republicans lose in the midterms, but other factors were in play. Democrats lifted COVID restrictions earlier in the year, taking away a major advantage for Republicans. Some GOP candidates were genuinely bad. Conservatives, wanting to exculpate pro-lifers, entirely blamed Donald Trump for the results. This stood on shaky ground, but there was at least a little bit of evidence to stake a claim. 

In this year’s races, abortion was the critical factor. The Ohio referendum was only about abortion. There was no Trump-endorsed candidate to blame it on. The measure to keep abortion legal was the sole reason voters turned up at the ballot box. 

Daniel Cameron, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Kentucky, was endorsed by Trump. And this was a state Trump won by nearly 26 points in 2020. The former president was hardly a liability, and Cameron was no one’s idea of a “MAGA extremist.” Yet, he lost to popular Democratic governor Andy Beshear. Beshear’s moderate record was a factor in his re-election. But he also hit Cameron hard on abortion, banking on the issue as his ticket to win a deep red state. It was a smart bet. In his victory speech, Beshear credited a pro-abortion ad for his win. Just a year ago, Kentucky voters rejected a measure that simply said abortion wasn’t protected by the state constitution. 

Many conservatives want you to believe Cameron was another Herschel Walker. He was a “bad candidate” foisted on a state that now suddenly hates Trump. The facts show otherwise. This is a state that loves Trump. Kentuckians voted overwhelmingly for Trump, yet rejected abortion restrictions. Cameron was a milquetoast black Republican that could easily win in other circumstances. The two critical factors here were abortion and Beshear’s popularity. 

Trump was a complete non-factor in the Virginia legislative elections. The state GOP, led by moderate Gov. Glenn Youngkin, made sure they distanced themselves from the former president. Youngkin’s GOP focused on crime, education, and the economy. There was no hint of “ultra MAGA.” But Democrats managed to make this election all about abortion, thanks to Youngkin. While the establishment governor made sure to steer clear of Trump, he did promise to institute a 15-week abortion ban if Republicans won. This was a gift to Democrats, and it became their main issue in the election. Every single attack ad against Republicans was about how these evil bigots were going to take away a woman’s right to choose. The strategy worked, and Democrats defied expectations by winning big on Tuesday. This issue was so potent it nearly made an amateur porn star a state House delegate. You know your messaging is bad if a woman who showed her butthole to paying customers was just a handful of votes away from representing your district. 

Abortion was undoubtedly the decisive factor in Virginia. Youngkin is popular in the state. Republicans ran a campaign almost perfectly suited for a state that went for Biden in 2020. The one chink in the armor was abortion. Virginia would have a GOP legislature if the party had not emphasized its desire to restrict the practice.

Tuesday should put to rest many of the delusions put forward by Pro-Life Inc. For years, conservatives proclaimed the youth as the “pro-life generation,” arguing they were more anti-abortion than their elders. Eighty-two percent of the “pro-life generation” voted to keep abortion legal in Ohio. Pro-lifers also claimed that piggish men were more pro-abortion than virtuous women. Sixty-one percent of the fairer sex voted to keep abortion legal, while 54 percent of men backed the measure. It appears women aren’t as pro-life as conservatives claim.

Pro-Life Inc. also claims that this issue is central to what conservatives care about. Yet, their side keeps losing in red states. Ohio joins Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana in red states that rejected the pro-life position at the ballot box. Florida may join the list next year if Democrats succeed in getting it on the ballot. Ohio’s pro-abortion referendum would likely pass in every state of the union, with some exceptions in the deep South. If this was a major issue to conservative voters, you would expect at least one red state to support a pro-life referendum on Election Day. That has yet to happen. Pro-lifers obtained a major victory last year when Roe v. Wade was overturned. But there was no turnout of the mythical anti-abortion demographic at the polls. Republicans were not rewarded for finally delivering on a major promise. Maybe the grassroots isn’t motivated by this issue as pro-lifers claim.

Republicans turned out their voters pretty well before they were campaigning on specific pledges to restrict abortion. If the base will stay at home unless Republicans make these pledges, then someone needs to explain how they won elections before the Dobbs decision. The base is pro-life, but they care more about other issues. Republicans don’t need to pledge bans on the campaign trail to turn these voters out. 

Unfortunately, conservatives are not doing any self-reflection at the moment. Since being honest would hurt their status within conservative movement, pundits are instead resorting to safe delusions to explain Tuesday’s loss. Trump is once again being blamed and new demands are being issued for the party to declare war on the candidate favored by over 60 percent of their own voters. Commentators also want Republicans to double-down on abortion and talk about it even more. Apparently, the solution is to demand a national 15-week ban–which was the issue that defeated the Virginia GOP–and talk about how Republicans can help out newly-made single moms. 

This is pure idiocy. Democrats want nothing more than to have abortion as an issue for 2024. A debate over a national 15-week ban would be godsend for them. It doesn’t matter if that appears reasonable or that Republicans somehow neutralize Democratic arguments by vague pronouncements that they care about new mothers. This framing lost them winnable elections this year. Voters react negatively to any proposed ban on abortion, no matter how reasonable it is. Pro-lifers claim that the answer is to highlight Democratic extremism on the issue. But there’s no evidence to prove that it works. Virginia Republicans campaigned against then-Gov. Ralph Northam’s support for abortion up until birth in 2019. They lost badly. 

People need to accept that the average American voter is very different from the average person on right-wing social media. They’re fine with a lot of terrible things. Ohioans also overwhelmingly voted to legalize weed. The Silent Majority isn’t really BASED. They view abortion as a matter of individual liberty, regardless of how stupid we may think that is. American voters see it as a right and they hate giving up their perceived rights. This especially true for women, who view it as a right over their own bodies. We can hate this all we want, but this is the reality.

Republicans don’t have to give up being pro-life. They just have to avoid the issue when it comes election time. They can restrict abortion after they win at the ballot box, but making pledges on the matter just helps the other side and ensures they can’t restrict abortion at all. Losing elections not only hurts the pro-life cause, it jeopardizes our ability to make any positive changes to our country. There is no victory in wallowing in self-righteous defeat. Nobody is going to congratulate us for losing on principle. We will just aid the Left in turning the entirety of America into California.

Conservatives lambasted Trump for telling them this truth before the election. Tuesday proved the former president right. It’s another reason why he stands as the best opportunity for Republicans to win in 2024. He’s the only Republican who gets what voters actually care about.