Monday, Donald Trump declared He made a statement stating that abortion decisions should be left to the provinces suppress enthusiasm about his lack of clarity on how to handle this issue as president.
He did the opposite.
The former president has activated many Democrats across the country in the past three days, raising the issue of his candidate’s tent. opponent’s campaignput potential the main battleground state at risk and drew fire from his one-time allies in his own party.
Trump’s dizzying stances on abortion this week — embracing states’ rights on Monday and distancing himself from a state-based outcome on Wednesday — demonstrate the messaging impossibilities ahead as he heads into the general election and tries to shed the Roe stain. v. Wade’s fall.
Trump made a transparently political decision on Monday, acting against a section of his own party not to speak in support of a national abortion ban. In a video statement, he lamented GOP losses since Roe’s reversal, noting that electoral politics had influenced his thinking.
If Trump thought he was taking the more politically palatable route, he was stung by an Arizona Supreme Court decision a day later. Act of 1864 anyone who performs the procedure or assists a woman in obtaining an abortion can face criminal charges and up to five years in prison.
Since the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a landmark abortion case in 2022, Republicans have been unable to find a way to neutralize the issue.
On the one hand, passing nationwide restrictions on abortion increases the potential for Republican losses in down-ballot elections. On the other hand, usurping states’ rights forces Trump to have the most extreme measures in those states.
States’ rights – up to a point
on wednesday Trump told reporters he would not sign a national ban on abortion as president. Then, showing that he’s still messing with messaging, Trump released the two on Wednesday Videos on the issue on his social media platform Truth.
“We brought it back to the states and now a lot of things are happening and a lot of good things are happening,” Trump said in a video.
In anotherhe accused Democrats of trying to distract from immigration and the economy.
“The only problem they’re thinking about is abortion, and now I’m just saying that the states are dealing with it, and that issue has been completely destroyed,” he said.
But one of the problems that Trump is trying to fight is a Democratic messaging warrior accusing him of being responsible for every state decision and threatening a federal abortion ban, both of which he has supported at one time or another.
There is Trump twisted and woven on abortion for his entire political career. In 1999, he declared that he was “pro-choice” as a lifelong New Yorker, even supporting “partial-birth abortion.” That changed when he ran for president as a Republican in 2015, though he initially praised Planned Parenthood. When he took office in 2017, he signed Roe v. Wade has promised to appoint judges to throw out his case.
At the same time, as president, he urged Congress to pass a 20-week abortion ban.
“I urge the Senate to pass this important legislation and send it to my desk for signature.” Trump said he made the announcement while speaking at the anti-abortion rights March for Life in Washington, D.C., after the House had already advanced the measure, and applauded it in real time.
But he said on Monday supported the states‘ rights. Two days later, the frenzy began Arizona court decisionAs a direct result of overturning Roe, he said, the court went too far.
His campaign later told NBC News that Trump believes decisions should be made at the state election or legislative level, not by the courts.
“President Trump could not have been more clear. Those decisions should be left to the states to “determine through voting or legislation, or perhaps both,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said.
But hours after Trump’s remarks on Wednesday, Arizona Republicans thwarted the legislative attempt A quick repeal of the law by Democrats. The Speaker of the House of the Republic said Democrats were trying to rush it.
Meanwhile, Trump proudly touts the Supreme Court’s Roe v. He took credit for overturning Wade because he nominated three conservative judges who made it possible.
At least the third time – the others were inside Alabamawhere a the ruling calling embryos children caused the in vitro fertilization to stop, and Floridawhere the court allowed the six-week abortion ban to go forward — Trump, Roe v. Wade spoke out against local laws or ordinances that came after the repeal.
“From a purely political point of view, both the Alabama and Arizona Supreme Court decisions should be considered in-kind donations to Democratic super PACs,” said Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett. “It put the issue squarely on Republican voters and candidates.”
Bartlett said Republicans under Trump are trying to “flip-flop, moderate, or move to a position that’s more like the American public,” but it may take more than one election cycle before the party finds its footing.
Democrats are on the offensive
After the Arizona ruling, Trump’s “leave it to the states” tactic backfired, making it clear once again that Republicans are continuing. has no effectiveness Way to counter Democrats’ messages attacking abortion rights.
“This is the first presidential election where abortion will be front and center,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant. “This is not an issue that the Republicans are going to win.”
Meanwhile, Democrats have for years — decades, in some cases — been able to unearth comments that make it all too easy to paint the broad GOP candidates in Republican primary races as hypocritical or unprincipled or anti-woman.
“Voters don’t believe brand new information, but when you tell them something they already know or think is true, they really believe it,” said a Democratic operative working on the key battleground congressional race. “And that’s what happened with abortion. Democrats are saying, ‘Republicans don’t want you to have that right. They’ve been telling you all your life that you have to believe them.” Voters believe it, too.
“Republicans are saying, ‘We’ve changed our minds, you should have some rights.’ Don’t look at what I said 5 years ago,’ and voters rightly know it’s bulls—,’ the person added.
The issue has become It is the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign and is one of the few fields Which puts him ahead of Trump in early voting.
Christina Amestoy, a spokeswoman for Think Big America — a nonprofit group working in battleground states like Arizona to support Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s fall election measures on abortion — said the timing of Trump’s announcement Monday further ties him to the court. decision.
“Just 24 hours after he said that, we have to see exactly what Trump is supporting by leaving it up to the states,” Amestoy said. “Arizona turned back the clock on women’s rights by 160 years to a time when doctors didn’t even know how to wash their hands.”
The problem for Trump and the party is that no matter how Republicans handle their individual contests, another controversial state ruling will inevitably emerge that everyone is being asked to take sides.
“Obviously, the anti-abortion movement didn’t stop with abortion — they came after IVF, they came after contraception, they came after women,” he said, demonstrating how Democrats intend to send a message on the issue. now and november.
GOP reaction to Trump’s stance
In recent months, Trump has publicly and privately issued public statements supporting a national abortion ban, listening to a section of his party calling for such a measure. He reacted after he failed to address the issue on Monday. And on Wednesday he said that he would not sign such a ban.
Former Vice President Mike Pence called Trump’s video on Monday “a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020.”
In it 4½ minute videoTrump claimed there was a public consensus that the high court should overturn Roe the query shows sequentially That most Americans prefer these federal protections.
“I think now that we have an abortion that everyone wants from a legal standpoint, the states will determine whether they vote or legislate, or maybe both, and whatever they decide should be the law of the land,” Trump said in the video.
On Wednesday, Trump said the Arizona court decision went too far, but he played down its significance, saying “it will be fixed” and “the will of the people” will prevail.
“I’m sure the governor and everybody will bring this back to their senses and I think it will be resolved very quickly,” he said.
Trump also suggested Florida would vote to repeal the new abortion law in November.
“This is the will of the people. So Florida will probably change. Arizona will definitely change. Everyone wants it to happen,” he said.
no Shortly after his remarks, the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion rights group with which Trump is affiliated, condemned the same ballot efforts in those states, citing the same phrase “will of the people” that Trump used.
“The proposed ballot initiatives in Florida and Arizona were written by the far Left and, if enacted, would allow painful late-term abortions in the fifth, sixth, seventh month of pregnancy and beyond,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser. in the statement. “They would repeal all pro-life laws enacted by a legislature that reflects the will of the people. These initiatives are backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in left-wing money designed to deceive voters about their true intentions. Pro-life candidates and officials should oppose them.”
The GOP’s recurring no-win scenarios
Abortion rights were won within about two years of Roe being overturned every race that they appear directly on the ballot.
That hot streak has led many Democrats — in races for Senate, governor, state Supreme Courts and more — to make their support (and their opponents’ opposition) for abortion rights central features of their campaigns.
It also gave way to a growing number of Republicans encouraging the party’s candidates to talk more about the issue and support something specific. But even in races where Republicans attacked the issue with a deliberate policy approach, they lost — a data point that Republican strategists still worry about and Democratic operatives still salivate over.
For example, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in the November election in Virginia It satisfied a large part of the Republican candidates in legislative races to rally behind A proposal to ban abortion after 15 weeks — including exemptions for rape, consanguinity and women’s health — as part of an effort to gain Republican control of both houses of the Legislature.
Strategists and policy watchers sensitive to the party’s broader fight on abortion saw the proposal as an important and hopeful test message for Republicans seeking a more nuanced reproductive rights policy and message in the post. – The era of Roe.
But this also failed. Democrats walked away with control of both chambers—reinforcing the idea that Republicans can’t win on this issue even if they come up with a non-excessive and thoughtful proposal.