Winning By Losing

Pro-Life Inc. will not see the GOP become more anti-abortion after an election loss

Professional pro-lifers are once again up in arms over Donald Trump. The presidential candidate and his running mate recently made statements that went against pro-life orthodoxy. Trump posted that he would be great for women and their “reproductive rights,” which is a phrase associated with the pro-choice side. J.D. Vance told a journalist that a Trump administration would veto a national abortion ban.

In response, Pro-Life Inc. is threatening to not vote for Trump for the hundredth or so time. Some of these activists are making these threats in the hope Trump will change his ways. Others are more committed to carrying out the threat. They want Trump to lose in order to make the GOP more pro-life. This is the reasoning offered by Nancy French, wife of the infamous Never Trumper David French. “You can vote for the Democrat in order to save the GOP and attempt to bring it back to being pro-life!” she wrote on X.

Partisans of all persuasions sometimes entertain this strategy. The idea is that if you punish the party closest to you politically, that will teach the party a lesson and make it cater more toward your interests. One example is Muslims threatening to not vote for Democrats if they don’t do more to stop Israel’s war in Gaza. This boycott may cost Democrats Michigan and potentially the entire election. Some pro-lifers seem to want to emulate this model, but it won’t work for them.

It should be obvious to people, but you win in politics by winning. You don’t win by losing. Occasionally, highly visible and organized groups can send a message by refusing to vote for a particular candidate. Muslims in Michigan are currently doing this. Their representatives can definitively prove that a large number of voters are not happy with the Democrats’ position on Israel. The high number of no votes for Joe Biden in the state’s primary last spring, particularly in Muslim-heavy areas, sent a clear message that Islamic groups can determine the election.

Pro-lifers have not proved this. In fact, they’ve proven they’re masters at losing elections. While professional pro-lifers say they are the key to winning in November, they have failed to win a single abortion referendum in a red state. They are expected to lose another round of referendums in red and red-leaning states in the fall. Abortion was the issue that most hurt the Republicans in the midterms. Pro-lifers failed to mobilize voters to reward the GOP for appointing judges who overturned Roe v. Wade, while their opponents were very effective in turning out pro-abortion voters. That pro-choice mobilization turned a red wave into a paltry ripple. 

It’s becoming clear that Pro-Life Inc. has little influence over actual voters. Professional pro-lifers do have visibility thanks to D.C.-based groups and conservative commentators dedicated to their cause. But they lack a definable voter base. The GOP base is definitely pro-life, but they are not single-issue voters. Ordinary conservatives care about a host of issues and abortion isn’t one of their top priorities. Right now, they care more about immigration and inflation. They also recognize that the GOP supports abortion restrictions while the other party wants partial-birth abortion legalized nationwide. They will happily vote for Trump. 

The one voter group the Pro-Life Inc. could claim to have sway over are evangelicals. However, this demographic supplies Trump’s most loyal and enthusiastic supporters. They demonstrated this in the primary. Like Muslims in the Democratic primary, pro-lifers pledged to send a message to Trump in the GOP primary. However, no message was sent. Trump easily cruised to victory thanks in part to overwhelming evangelical support. His chief opponent, Nikki Haley, relied on Democrats and moderates for her quixotic bid, not pro-lifers. This proved Pro-Life Inc. doesn’t influence actual voters. However, no one in Pro-Life Inc. got the memo.

The Democrats’ campaign agenda fully undermines the belief that a loss would make the GOP more pro-life. Abortion is arguably the chief issue for Democrats this election. Kamala Harris dedicated several paragraphs in her acceptance speech to the topic. Her party is running several ads on it. Democrats support abortion referendums in states such as Arizona and Florida to increase their chances of winning those states. This election can be seen as a referendum on abortion. If Democrats win, only the delusional members of Pro-Life Inc. will see it as proof the GOP wasn’t anti-abortion enough. Everyone else, including Republican lawmakers, will see this as further proof that the pro-life cause is a loser. It’s especially hard to claim that the GOP needs to be more pro-life to win elections if pro-lifers, once again, lose a bunch of ballot initiatives in red states.

If anything, this result would make the GOP less pro-life. The movement cannot mobilize voters, raise money, or even act as a useful educational service on the issue (more Americans were pro-life before Pro-Life Inc. existed).so, it’s unclear why Republicans would continue to listen to these folks after another catastrophic electoral loss. Pro-Lifers would be marginalized, and Republicans who want to win elections would further moderate their views on the topic. Democrats are certainly not going to try to win over pro-lifers. They will double down on wanting national partial-birth abortion. This will leave pro-lifers with no political home and limited ability to influence the course of the nation. 

The only way for pro-lifers to maintain their influence is for Trump to win in November. It would show Republicans can still win while red states restrict abortion. Republicans will be less inclined to drop their pro-life support if they know it won’t lose them elections. A Kamala loss will prove that Democrats can’t win elections simply on abortion. It will also mean that Republicans can continue to restrict abortion on the state level and not worry about a Democratic federal government trying to stop them. All in all, this would be a win for pro-lifers–even if they lose every abortion referendum. 

But facts and logic may not persuade Pro-Life Inc. to do the right thing. Professional pro-lifers prefer throwing tantrums and pretending like they’re the most important voters on Earth. They seem to relish the idea of harming Trump–something they’re actually incapable of doing at the ballot box. Professional pro-lifers are more invested in attacking Trump than doing any work to help their side win in any of these ballot referendums. Maybe they understand that they will lose these fights, so they prefer to stay in the social media bubble and pretend they’re all-powerful within the GOP. The referendums, on the other hand, eviscerate that safety bubble.

Rarely do you win politically by losing. In the past, many nationalists demanded that the GOP lose so it would become more right-wing. This was more an expression of their lack of serious political presence than a well-thought out strategy. When politically impotent, it’s nice to think you can make someone lose when you have no way of helping them win. However, nationalist ideas only gained prominence when a candidate won. Trump’s 2016 victory made the Right more open to once forbidden ideas. People saw that these ideas connect with Americans and win elections.

With a few exceptions, the only way to win politically is to win elections. The pro-life cause will be an even worse state if Trump loses an election that Democrats turned into a referendum on abortion. Everyone with common sense can recognize this, but the myopia of professional pro-lifers blind them to the obvious. It’s a free country; they can sit out the election if they want. Just don’t expect Republicans to come running back to them afterwards.