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Tag: abortion rights

  • Abortion Is Inflaming the GOP’s Biggest Electoral Problem

    Abortion Is Inflaming the GOP’s Biggest Electoral Problem

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    The escalating political struggle over abortion is compounding the GOP’s challenges in the nation’s largest and most economically vibrant metropolitan areas.

    The biggest counties in Ohio voted last week overwhelmingly against the ballot initiative pushed by Republicans and anti-abortion forces to raise the threshold for passing future amendments to the state constitution to 60 percent. That proposal, known as Issue 1, was meant to reduce the chances that voters would approve a separate initiative on the November ballot to overturn the six-week abortion ban Ohio Republicans approved in 2019.

    The preponderant opposition to Issue 1 in Ohio’s largest counties extended a ringing pattern. Since the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide constitutional right to abortion with its 2022 Dobbs decision, seven states have held ballot initiatives that allowed voters to weigh in on whether the procedure should remain legal: California, Vermont, Montana, Michigan, Kansas, Kentucky, and now Ohio. In addition, voters in Wisconsin chose a new state-supreme-court justice in a race dominated by the question of whether abortion should remain legal in the state.

    Read: The abortion backlash reaches Ohio

    In each of those eight contests, the abortion-rights position or candidate prevailed. And in each case, most voters in the states’ largest population centers have voted—usually by lopsided margins—to support legal abortion.

    These strikingly consistent results underline how conflict over abortion is amplifying the interconnected geographic, demographic, and economic realignments reconfiguring American politics. Particularly since Donald Trump emerged as the GOP’s national leader, Republicans have solidified their hold on exurban, small-town, and rural communities, whose populations tend to be predominantly white and Christian and many of whose economies are reliant on the powerhouse industries of the 20th century: manufacturing, energy extraction, and agriculture. Democrats, in turn, are consolidating their advantage inside almost all of the nation’s largest metro areas, which tend to be more racially diverse, more secular, and more integrated into the expanding 21st-century Information Age economy.

    New data provided exclusively to The Atlantic by Brookings Metro, a nonpartisan think tank, show, in fact, that the counties that voted against the proposed abortion restrictions are the places driving most economic growth in their states. Using data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, Brookings Metro at my request calculated the share of total state economic output generated by the counties that voted for and against abortion rights in five of these recent contests. The results were striking: Brookings found that the counties supporting abortion rights accounted for more than four-fifths of the total state GDP in Michigan, more than three-fourths in Kansas, exactly three-fourths in Ohio, and more than three-fifths in both Kentucky and Wisconsin.

    “We are looking at not only two different political systems but two different economies as well within the same states,” Robert Maxim, a senior research associate at Brookings Metro, told me.

    The Ohio vote demonstrated again that abortion is extending the fault line between those diverging systems, with stark electoral implications. Concerns that Republicans would try to ban abortion helped Democrats perform unexpectedly well in the 2022 elections in the key swing states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, particularly in well-educated suburbs around major cities. Democrats won four of the six governor contests and four of the five U.S. Senate races in those states despite widespread discontent over the economy and President Joe Biden’s job performance. Even if voters remain unhappy on both of those fronts in 2024, Democratic strategists are cautiously optimistic that fear of Republicans attempting to impose a national abortion ban will remain a powerful asset for Biden and the party’s other candidates.

    When given the chance to weigh in on the issue directly, voters in communities of all sizes have displayed resistance to banning abortion. As Philip Bump of The Washington Post calculated this week, the share of voters supporting abortion rights exceeded Biden’s share of the vote in 500 of the 510 counties that have cast ballots on the issue since last year (outside of Vermont, which Bump did not include in his analysis).

    But across these states, most smaller counties still voted against legal abortion, including this last week in Ohio. A comprehensive analysis of the results by the Cleveland Plain Dealer found that in Ohio’s rural counties, more than three-fifths of voters still backed Issue 1.

    Opponents of Issue 1 overcame that continued resistance with huge margins in the state’s largest urban and suburban counties. Most voters rejected Issue 1 in 14 of the 17 counties that cast the most ballots this week, including all seven that cast the absolute most votes (according to the ranking posted by The New York Times). In several of those counties, voters opposed Issue 1 by ratios of 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1.

    Equally striking were the results in suburban counties around the major cities, almost all of which usually lean toward the GOP. Big majorities opposed Issue 1 in several large suburban counties that Trump won in 2020 (including Delaware and Lorain). Even in more solidly Republican suburban counties that gave Trump more than 60 percent of their vote (Butler, Warren, and Clermont), the “yes” side on Issue 1 eked out only a very narrow win. Turnout in those big urban and suburban counties was enormous as well.

    Jeff Rusnak, a long-time Ohio-based Democratic consultant, says the suburban performance may signal an important shift for the party. One reason that Ohio has trended more solidly Republican than other states in the region, particularly Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, he argues, is that women in Ohio have not moved toward Democrats in the Trump era as much as women in those other states have. But, he told me, the “no” side on Issue 1 could not have run as well as it did in the big suburban counties without significant improvement among independent and even Republican-leaning women. “In Ohio, women who were not necessarily following the Great Lakes–state trends, I think, now woke up and realized, Aha, we better take action,” Rusnak said.

    The Ohio results followed the pattern evident in the other states that have held elections directly affecting abortion rights since last year’s Supreme Court decision. In Kansas, abortion-rights supporters carried all six of the counties that cast the most votes. In the Kentucky and Michigan votes, abortion-rights supporters carried eight of the 10 counties that cast the most votes, and in California they carried the 14 counties with the highest vote totals. Montana doesn’t have as many urban centers as these other states, but its anti-abortion ballot measure was defeated with majority opposition in all three of the counties that cast the most votes. In the Wisconsin state-supreme-court race this spring, Democrat Janet Protasiewicz, who centered her campaign on an unusually explicit pledge to support legal abortion, carried seven of the 10 highest-voting counties. (All of these figures are from the New York Times ranking of counties in those states’ results.) For Republicans hoping to regain ground in urban and suburban communities, abortion has become “a huge challenge because they really are on the wrong side of the issue” with those voters, Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School poll, told me.

    The results in these abortion votes reflect what I’ve called the “class inversion” in American politics. That’s the modern dynamic in which Democrats are running best in the most economically dynamic places in and around the largest cities. Simultaneously, Republicans are relying more on economically struggling communities that generally resist and resent the cultural and demographic changes that are unfolding mostly in those larger metros.

    Tom Davis, a former Republican representative from Northern Virginia who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee, has described this process to me as Republicans exchanging “the country club for the country.” In some states, trading reduced margins in large suburbs for expanded advantages in small towns and rural areas has clearly improved the GOP position. That’s been true in such states as Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas, as well as in Texas, Iowa, Montana, and, more tenuously, North Carolina. Ohio has fit squarely in that category as well, with GOP gains among blue-collar voters, particularly in counties along the state’s eastern border, propelling its shift from the quintessential late-20th-century swing state to its current position as a Republican redoubt.

    But that reconfiguration just as clearly hurt Republicans in other states, such as Colorado and Virginia earlier in this century and Arizona and Georgia more recently. Growing strength in the largest communities has even allowed Democrats to regain the edge in each of the three pivotal Rust Belt states Trump in 2016 dislodged from the “blue wall”: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

    In 2022, Democrats swept the governorships in all three states, and won a Senate race as well in Pennsylvania. Support for legal abortion was central to all of those victories: Just over three-fifths of voters in each state said abortion should remain legal in all or most circumstances and vast majorities of them backed the Democratic candidates, according to the exit polls conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of media outlets. The numbers were almost identical in Arizona, where just over three-fifths of voters also backed abortion rights, and commanding majorities of them supported the winning Democratic candidates for governor and U.S. senator.

    Those races made clear that protecting abortion rights was a powerful issue in 2022 for Democrats in blue-leaning or purple states where abortion mostly remains legal. But, as I’ve written, the issue proved much less potent in the more solidly red-leaning states that banned abortion: Republican governors and legislators who passed severe abortion bans cruised to reelection in states including Texas, Georgia, and Florida. Exit polls found that in those more reliably Republican states, even a significant minority of voters who described themselves as pro-choice placed greater priority on other issues, among them crime and immigration, and supported Republican governors who signed abortion restrictions or bans.

    Ohio exemplified that trend as powerfully as any state. Though the exit polls showed that nearly three-fifths of voters said abortion should remain legal in all or most circumstances, Republican Governor Mike DeWine cruised to a landslide reelection after signing the state’s six-week abortion ban. Republican J. D. Vance, who supported a national abortion ban, nonetheless attracted the votes of about one-third of self-described voters who said they supported abortion rights in his winning Ohio Senate campaign last year, the exit polls found.

    The fate of Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who’s facing reelection in 2024, may turn on whether he can win a bigger share of the voters who support abortion rights there, as Democrats did last year in states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. (The same is likely true for Democratic Senator Jon Tester in Republican-leaning Montana, another state that voted down an anti-abortion ballot initiative last year.)

    Read: It’s abortion, stupid

    Brown has some reasons for optimism. After the defeat of Issue 1 last week, the follow-on ballot initiative in November to restore abortion rights in the state will keep the issue front and center. The two leading Republican candidates to oppose Brown are each staunch abortion opponents; Secretary of State Frank LaRose, the probable front-runner in the GOP race, was the chief public advocate for last week’s failed initiative. Most encouraging for Brown, the “no” vote on Issue 1 in the state’s biggest suburban counties far exceeded not only Biden’s performance in the same places in 2020, but also Brown’s own numbers in his last reelection, in 2018.

    For Brown, and virtually every Democrat in a competitive statewide race next year, the road to victory runs through strong showings in such large urban and suburban counties. Given the persistence of discontent over the economy, it will be particularly crucial for Biden to generate big margins among suburban voters who support abortion rights in the very few states likely to decide control of the White House. The resounding defeat of Issue 1 this week showed again that Republicans, in their zeal to revoke the right to legal abortion, have handed Biden and other Democrats their most powerful argument to move those voters.

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    Ronald Brownstein

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  • The Abortion Backlash Reaches Ohio

    The Abortion Backlash Reaches Ohio

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    Officially, abortion had nothing to do with the constitutional amendment that Ohio voters rejected today. The word appeared nowhere on the ballot, and no abortion laws will change as a result of the outcome.

    Practically and politically, however, the defeat of the ballot initiative known as Issue 1 was all about abortion, giving reproductive-rights advocates the latest in a series of victories in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Fearing the passage of an abortion-rights amendment in November, Republicans in Ohio asked voters to approve a proposal that would raise the threshold for enacting a change to the state constitution, which currently requires a simple majority vote. The measure on the ballot today would have lifted the threshold to 60 percent.

    Ohio voters, turning out in unusually large numbers for a summertime special election, declined. Their decision was a rare victory for Democrats in a state that Republicans have dominated, and it suggests that abortion remains a strong motivator for voters heading into next year’s presidential election. The Ohio results could spur abortion-rights advocates to ramp up their efforts to circumvent Republican-controlled state legislatures by placing the issue directly before voters. They have reason to feel good about their chances: Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, statewide abortion-rights ballot measures have been undefeated, winning in blue states such as Vermont and California as well as in red states such as Kansas and Kentucky.

    Read: The next big abortion fight

    In Kansas last summer, an 18-point victory by the abortion-rights side stunned members of both parties in a socially conservative state. By the final day of voting in Ohio, however, the defeat of Issue 1 could no longer be called a surprise. For weeks, Democrats who had become accustomed to disappointment in Ohio watched early-voting numbers soar in the state’s large urban and suburban counties. If Republicans had hoped to catch voters napping by scheduling the election for the dog days of August, they miscalculated. As I traveled the state recently, I saw Vote No signs in front yards and outside churches in areas far from major cities, and progressive organizers told me that volunteers were signing up to knock on doors at levels unheard of for a summer campaign. The opposition extended to some independent and Republican voters, who saw the proposal as taking away their rights. “It’s this ‘Don’t tread on me’ moment where voters are being activated,” says Catherine Turcer, the executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a good-government advocacy group that helped lead the effort to defeat the amendment.

    Opponents of Issue 1 assembled a bipartisan coalition that included two former Republican governors. They focused their message broadly, appealing to voters to “protect majority rule” and stop a brazen power grab by the legislature. But the special election’s obvious link to this fall’s abortion referendum in Ohio drove people to the polls, particularly women and younger voters. “Voters don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the Ohio constitution. They probably don’t spend a ton of time thinking about voting rights,” Turcer told me. But, she said, “the attempt to dilute voter power so that it would impact a vote on reproductive rights made it really concrete, and that was important.”

    Voters in South Dakota and Arkansas last year rejected similar GOP-driven efforts to make ballot initiatives harder to pass. But Ohio’s status as a large former swing state that has turned red over the past decade posed a unique test for Democrats who are desperate to revive their party in the state. “We’ve been beat in Ohio a lot,” Dennis Willard, a longtime party operative in the state who served as the lead spokesperson for the No campaign, told me. That Republicans tried to pass this amendment, he said, “is a testament to them believing that they’re invincible and that we cannot beat them.”

    The defeat of Issue 1 likely clears the way for voters this fall to guarantee abortion access in Ohio, and it will keep open an avenue for progressives to enshrine, with a simple majority vote, other policies in the state constitution—including marijuana legalization and a higher minimum wage—that they could not get through a legislature controlled by Republicans. Democrats, including Willard, are eying an amendment to curb the gerrymandering that has helped the GOP lock in their majorities. They also hope that tonight’s victory will put Ohio back on the political map. “Us winning sends a message to the rest of the country that Ohio has possibilities,” Willard said. “And winning in November demonstrates to people that you can’t write Ohio off anymore.”

    Read: The Kansas abortion shocker

    For the moment, though, the GOP is in little danger of losing its hold on the state. It controls supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature; the Republican governor, Mike DeWine, trounced his Democratic opponent by 25 points last year to win a second term. One Ohio Republican, speaking anonymously before today’s election, told me that the defeat of Issue 1 and the expected passage of the reproductive-rights amendment in November could actually help the party next year, because voters might no longer believe that abortion access is in danger in the state. (The GOP performed better last year in blue states such as New York and California, where abortion rights were not under serious threat.)

    Republicans in Ohio, and in other states where similar ballot measures have flopped, are now confronting the limits of their power and the point at which voters will rebel. Will they be chastened and recalibrate, or will they continue to push the boundaries? It’s a question the proponents of Issue 1 did not want to contemplate before the votes confirming their defeat were counted. Their critics, however, are doubtful that Republicans will shift their strategy. “It’s unlikely that they will stop right away,” Turcer said. “It will take a number of defeats before they’re likely to understand that voters do not want to be taken advantage of.”

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    Russell Berman

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  • The anti-abortion movement is fractured over what it wants from its first post-Roe GOP presidential nominee | CNN Politics

    The anti-abortion movement is fractured over what it wants from its first post-Roe GOP presidential nominee | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    Bernie Hayes has spent most Mondays since the overturning of Roe v. Wade meeting with friends outside of an Iowa Planned Parenthood trying to stop abortions one at a time. He huddles monthly with other like-minded activists plotting more wholesale paths to halting the procedure.

    Lately, Hayes, an elder at Noelridge Park Church in Cedar Rapids, has observed more dissent among anti-abortion allies who once worked in harmony. Some see the fall of Roe as a one-time chance to ban abortion entirely while others are worried about the political consequences of pushing too hard too quickly.

    “Sadly, it becomes divisive to the point where we just get fractured,” Hayes said. “I can only imagine what the division looks like on a national scale.”

    Those divisions are spilling out into the 2024 Republican presidential primary, as leading anti-abortion organizations are offering candidates conflicting guidance on an issue that has galvanized the political right for half a century. Recent polling shows Republican voters aren’t providing candidates much more clarity.

    Lynda Bell, the president of Florida Right to Life, bristled at the suggestion that Republican candidates must back a federal abortion ban.

    “There’s nothing in the Constitution that talks about abortion and this issue should be decided by the states,” she said.

    But other leaders of anti-abortion groups want GOP candidates to be unflinching in their support for more hardline policies.

    “Anyone in the pro-life movement is looking very carefully at the current candidates that are running for president, and those who are not advocating strongly on this issue are going to be the ones that are not going to get the confidence and get the vote of the pro-life movement,” said Maggie DeWitte, the executive director of the Iowa anti-abortion group Pulse Life Advocates.

    Candidates are cautiously navigating the unclear expectations of conservative voters as they search for their first presidential nominee in a post-Roe America. Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the two highest-polling candidates for the GOP nomination, have routinely dodged questions on the trail about whether they would sign a national abortion ban and at how many weeks into a pregnancy they would support such federal legislation.

    Meanwhile, candidates who have expressed more defined views on the topic – like former Vice President Mike Pence, a backer of a federal ban, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said the federal government “should not be involved” in the abortion debate – have yet to gain traction with Republican voters.

    Whoever is the GOP nominee will face an electorate that has so far handed anti-abortion advocates a series of stinging defeats since the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson last summer. In the immediate aftermath of the court’s ruling, Kansans voted overwhelmingly to keep abortion legal in the state. In November, Michiganders at the ballot box enshrined abortion access in the state constitution. This week in Wisconsin, liberal justice Janet Protasiewicz started her term on the state Supreme Court after winning a spring race, during which she campaigned on protecting abortion access.

    The enthusiasm displayed by abortion-rights activists in the past 12 months will be tested again on Tuesday when Ohioans will decide whether to raise the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment, a referendum that would have significant implications for a fall ballot question ensure “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s reproductive decisions.”

    “We need to start winning hearts and minds,” Hayes said. “I don’t think we can worry about a federal ban until you can do that.”

    Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a national anti-abortion group, has clashed with the GOP contenders for the nomination as the organization enforces its own red line for presidential candidates: a 15-week federal ban.

    When Trump’s campaign suggested in April that abortion should be decided at the state level, Marjorie Dannenfelser, the organization’s president, called it “a morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate to hold.” It was a stunning break between one of the country’s most influential anti-abortion groups and the president who nominated the three Supreme Court justices that helped secure the movement’s watershed victory. Trump and Dannenfelser later met to clear the air, though Trump has still evaded outlining his views on the issue.

    Dannenfelser similarly said it was “not acceptable” when another candidate, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, stated “it’s not realistic” to expect a gridlocked Congress to find consensus on federal abortion legislation.

    And, in a blistering rebuke this week, Dannenfelser questioned DeSantis’ leadership after he once again declined to back a federal abortion.

    “A pro-life president has a duty to protect the lives of all Americans,” she said. “He should be the National Defender of Life.”

    DeSantis dismissed the criticism during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, where he noticeably drops references to his state’s new abortion law – which bans most abortions after six weeks – from his stump speech.

    “Different groups, you know, are gonna have different agendas, but I can tell you this: Nobody running has actually delivered pro-life protections,” DeSantis said. “I have done that.”

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott seized on the fissure between DeSantis and the leading abortion group, writing in a social media post that, “Republicans should not be retreating on life.” He added, “We need a national 15-week limit to stop blue states from pushing abortion on demand.”

    Scott, though, also struggled to define the federal role in the next frontier for the anti-abortion movement after he entered the presidential race in May.

    The anti-abortion movement is not totally aligned behind Dannenfelser. Carol Tobias, the president of the National Right to Life Committee, said she thought it was a mistake to have a political litmus test for Republican presidential candidates on abortion and argued doing so would only serve to splinter the party ahead of the general election. It “doesn’t help” for SBA Pro-Life America to set a 15-week national ban as its standard for GOP candidates, Tobias said, arguing that there were more realistic goals to work towards, like ensuring zero tax dollars are used to fund abortions

    “If we’re not going to get a national law on abortion through Congress, why focus on it?” Tobias told CNN.

    Republican voters appear similarly divided. A New York Times/Siena College national survey released this week found more Republicans favored some exceptions (33%) than a total ban (22%). Meanwhile, one-third said they believed abortion should be mostly or always legal.

    But among White evangelical Republican voters – whose influence is especially pronounced in the early nominating contests in Iowa and South Carolina – opposition is higher. More than three-fourths responded that abortion should be always or mostly illegal.

    Further complicating the calculus for the Republican field is that the GOP voters least likely to vote for Trump are among the most likely to support at least some protections for abortion. For those Republicans who said they are not open to voting for Trump, only 11% support a total ban while more than half said they want abortion to be legal in most situations.

    The clashing opinions underscore the political tightrope Republican candidates are walking after their party underperformed in the 2022 midterms in an election held just months after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Some Republicans – including Trump – have blamed it for the party’s losses, pointing to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s failed attempt to push a federal ban through Congress last year as strategically unsound.

    “I thought, ‘What is Lindsey Graham doing?’” Bell said. “The Supreme Court just said it was a state decision. I was baffled.”

    But there are also fears within the anti-abortion movement that Republicans won’t act to preserve their chances at the ballot box.

    “Some say, ‘Let’s just ignore it,’” Hayes, the Cedar Rapids church elder, said. “For me the worst thing can happen is that it’s either very diluted or taken out of the platform all together. I hope we won’t go there. But if we’re going to talk about it, we need to do it in a smart way.”

    In Hayes’ state, Republicans that control Iowa’s government moved to ban most abortions in the state as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the measure into law at last month’s Family Leadership Summit, where most of the GOP field had assembled to speak directly to the state’s evangelical and Christian voters. Many Republican candidates heaped praise on Reynolds for signing the law, though most have not advocated for similar legislation at the federal level.

    Trump, who has notably not weighed in on Iowa’s law, did not attend the summit and has privately said he considers abortion a losing issue for Republicans. Publicly, he called Florida’s six-week abortion ban “too harsh,” testing conservatives who once celebrated Trump’s place in ending Roe.

    “I think many in the pro-life movement were disappointed to hear him talk about life not being a winning issue, and sort of attacking the heartbeat bill and some of the other legislation that’s coming down as being ‘too harsh,’” DeWitte said. “I think that really turned off people in the pro-life movement.”

    Joni Lupis, a pastor and president and director of March For Life New York, said she is wary of candidates who aren’t taking a stance on the issue or offering realistic answers.

    “Let’s be honest: The president can’t just declare no more abortion in the whole world,” Lupis said. “They can say they will but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. That’s politics and we’ll have to wait and see what they have to do. I like a person that says what they believe. If you believe something, you should stand behind and declare it.”

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  • The Next Big Abortion Fight

    The Next Big Abortion Fight

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    For the 150 or so people who filled a church hall in Toledo, Ohio, for a Thursday-night campaign rally last week, the chant of the evening featured a profanity usually discouraged in a house of God.

    “With all due respect, pastor, hell no!” shouted Betty Montgomery, a former Ohio attorney general. Montgomery is a Republican, which gave the largely Democratic audience even more reason to roar with approval. They had gathered at the Warren AME Church, in Toledo, to voice their opposition to a constitutional amendment that Ohio voters will approve or reject in a statewide referendum on August 8. Many of those in the boisterous crowd were experiencing a feeling unfamiliar to Democrats in the state over the past decade: optimism.

    If enacted, the Republican-backed proposal known as Issue 1 would raise the bar for any future changes to the state constitution. Currently, constitutional amendments in Ohio—including the one on next week’s ballot—need only a bare majority of voters to pass; the proposal seeks to make the threshold a 60-percent supermajority.

    In other years, a rules tweak like this one might pass without much notice. But next week’s referendum has galvanized Democratic opposition inside and outside Ohio, turning what the GOP had hoped would be a sleepy summertime election into an expensive partisan proxy battle. Conservatives have argued that making the constitution harder to amend would protect Ohio from liberal efforts to raise the minimum wage, tighten gun laws, and fight climate change. But the Republican-controlled legislature clearly timed this referendum to intercept a progressive march on one issue in particular: Ohioans will decide in November whether to make access to abortion a constitutional right, and the outcome of next week’s vote could mean the difference between victory and defeat for backers of abortion rights.

    A year after the fall of Roe v. Wade, the back-to-back votes will also test whether abortion as an issue can still propel voters to the polls in support of Democratic candidates and causes. If the abortion-rights side wins next week and in November, Ohio would become the largest GOP-controlled state to enshrine abortion protections into law. The abortion-rights movement is trying to replicate the success it found last summer in another red state, Kansas, where voters decisively rejected an amendment that would have allowed the legislature to ban abortion, presaging a midterm election in which Democrats performed better than expected in states where abortion rights were under threat.

    Read: The Kansas abortion shocker

    To prevent Democratic attempts to circumvent conservative state legislatures, Republican lawmakers have sought to restrict ballot initiatives across the country. Similar efforts are under way or have already won approval in states including Florida, Missouri, North Dakota, and Idaho. But to Democrats in Ohio and beyond, the August special election is perhaps the most brazen effort yet by Republicans to subvert the will of voters. Polls show that in Ohio, the abortion-rights amendment is likely to win more than 50 percent of the vote, as have similar ballot measures in other states. For Republicans to propose raising the threshold three months before the abortion vote in November looks like a transparent bid to move the proverbial goalposts right when their opponents are about to score.

    “I don’t think I’ve seen such a naked attempt to stay in power,” a former Democratic governor of Ohio, Dick Celeste, told the church crowd in Toledo. As in Kansas a year ago, the Republican majority in the state legislature scheduled the referendum for August—a time when the party assumed turnout would be low and favorable to their cause. (Adding to the Democratic outrage is the fact that just a few months earlier, Ohio Republicans had voted to restrict local governments from holding August elections, because they tend to draw so few people.) “They’re trying to slip it in,” Kelsey Suffel, a Democratic voter from Perrysburg, told me after she had cast an early vote.

    That Ohio Republicans would try a similar gambit so soon after the defeat their counterparts suffered in Kansas struck many Democrats as a sign of desperation. “The winds of change are blowing,” Celeste said in Toledo. “They’re afraid, and they should be afraid, because the people won’t tolerate it.”

    The upcoming vote will serve as an important measure of strength for Ohio Democrats ahead of elections in the state next year that could determine control of Congress. Democrats have had a long losing streak in Ohio. Donald Trump easily won the state in 2016 and 2020, and Republicans have won every statewide office except for that of Senator Sherrod Brown, who faces reelection next year. Still, there’s reason to believe Celeste is right to be optimistic. A Suffolk University poll released last week found that 57 percent of registered voters planned to vote against Issue 1. (A private survey commissioned by a nonpartisan group also found the August amendment losing, a Republican who had seen the results told me on the condition of anonymity.) Early-voting numbers have swamped predictions of low participation in an August election, suggesting that abortion remains a key motivator for getting people to turn out. Groups opposing the amendment have significantly outspent supporters of the change.

    Abortion isn’t explicitly on the ballot in Ohio next week, but the clear linkage between this referendum and the one on reproductive rights in November has divided the Republican coalition. Although the state’s current Republican governor, Mike DeWine, backs Issue 1, the two living GOP former governors, Bob Taft and John Kasich, oppose it as an overreach by the legislature.

    “That’s the giant cloud on this issue,” Steve Stivers, a former Republican member of Congress who now heads the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, told me. The Chamber of Commerce backs the amendment because, as Stivers said, it’ll help stop “bad ideas” such as raising the minimum wage, marijuana legalization, and proposals supported by organized labor. But, he said, many of his members were worried that the group would be dragged into a fight over abortion, on which it wants to stay neutral: “The timing is not ideal.”

    Read: It’s abortion, stupid

    Democrats have highlighted comments from Republicans who have departed from the party’s official message and drawn a connection between the August referendum and the abortion vote this fall. “They’ve all said the quiet part out loud, which is this election is 100 percent about trying to prevent abortion rights from having a fair election in the fall,” the state Democratic chair, Liz Walters, told me.

    But to broaden its coalition, opponents of the amendment have advanced a simpler argument—preserve “majority rule”—that also seems to be resonating with voters. “I’m in favor of democracy,” explained Ed Moritz, an 85-year-old retired college professor standing outside his home in Cleveland, when I asked him why he was planning to vote no. Once a national bellwether, Ohio has become close to a one-party state in recent years. For Democrats, citizen-led constitutional amendments represent one of the few remaining checks on a legislature dominated by Republicans. Moritz noted that the GOP had already gerrymandered the Ohio legislature by drawing maps to ensure its future majorities. “This,” he said, “is an attempt to gerrymander the entire population.”

    To Frank LaRose, the suggestion that Issue 1 represents an assault on democracy is “hyperbole.” LaRose is Ohio’s Republican secretary of state and, of late, the public face of Issue 1. Traversing Ohio over the past few weeks, he’s used the suddenly high-profile campaign as a launching pad for his bid for the Republican nomination for Senate in 2024.

    LaRose, 44, served for eight years in the state Senate before becoming Ohio’s top elections officer in 2019. (He won a second term last year.) He’s a smooth debater and quick on his feet, but on the Issue 1 campaign, he’s not exactly exuding confidence.

    In an interview, he began by rattling off a litany of complaints about the opposition’s messaging, which he called “intentionally misleading.” LaRose accused Issue 1’s opponents of trying to bamboozle conservative voters with literature showing images of the Constitution being cut to pieces and equating the amendment with “Stop the Steal.” “That’s completely off base,” he said. “We’ve had to compete with that and with a mountain of money that they’ve had, and with a pretty organized and intentional effort by the media on this.”

    LaRose likes to remind people that even if voters approve Issue 1, citizens would still be able to pass, with a simple majority, ballot initiatives to create or repeal statutes in Ohio law. The August proposal applies only to the state constitution, which LaRose said is not designed for policy making. Left unsaid, however, is that unlike an amendment to the constitution, any statutory change approved by the voters could swiftly be reversed by the Republican majority in the legislature.

    “Imagine if the U.S. Constitution changed every year,” he said. “What instability would that create? Well, that’s what’s at risk if we don’t pass Issue 1.” LaRose’s argument ignored the fact that Ohio’s rules for constitutional amendments have been in place for more than a century and, during that time, just 19 of the 77 changes proposed by citizen petitions have passed. (Many others generated by the legislature have won approval by the voters.)

    LaRose has been spending a lot of his time explaining the amendment to confused voters, including Republicans. When I spoke with him last weekend, he had just finished addressing about two dozen people inside a cavernous 19th-century church in Steubenville. He described his stump speech as a “seventh-grade civics class” in which he explained the differences between the rarely amended federal Constitution and Ohio’s routinely amended founding document. The laws that Ohio could be saddled with if the voters reject Issue 1, LaRose warned, went far beyond abortion: “It’s every radical West Coast policy that they can think of that they want to bring to Ohio.”

    The challenges LaRose has faced in selling voters on the proposal soon became apparent. When I asked a pair of women who had questioned LaRose during his speech whether he had persuaded them, one simply replied, “No.” Another frustrated attendee who supported the proposal told LaRose that she had encountered voters who didn’t understand the merits of the idea.

    Republicans have had to spend more time than they’d like defending their claim that Issue 1 is not simply an effort to head off November’s abortion amendment. They have also found themselves playing catch-up on an election that they placed on the ballot. “They got out of the gate earlier than our side,” the state Republican Party chair, Alex Triantafilou, told me, referring to an early round of TV ads that opposition groups began running throughout the state.

    David Frum: The humiliating Ohio Senate race

    The GOP’s struggle to sell its proposal to voters adds to the perception that the party, in placing the measure on the ballot, was acting not from a position of strength but of weakness. The thinly disguised effort to preempt a simple-majority vote on abortion is surely a concession by Republicans that they are losing on the issue even in what has become a reliably red state.

    When I asked LaRose to respond to the concerns about abortion that Stivers reported from his members in the Chamber of Commerce, he lamented that it was another example of businesses succumbing to “cancel culture.”

    Confidence can be dangerous for a Democrat in Ohio. Barack Obama carried the state twice, but in both 2016 and 2020, late polls showing a tight race were proved wrong by two eight-point Trump victories. A similar trajectory played out last year, when the Republican J. D. Vance pulled away from the Democrat Tim Ryan in the closing weeks to secure a seven-point victory in Ohio’s Senate race.

    “Democrats in the state are beaten down,” says Matt Caffrey, the Columbus-based organizing director for Swing Left, a national group that steers party donors and volunteers to key races across the country. He’s seen the decline firsthand, telling me of the challenge Democrats have had in recruiting canvassers and engaging voters who have grown more discouraged with each defeat.

    That began to change this summer, Caffrey told me. Volunteers have flocked to canvassing events in large numbers, some for the first time—a highly unusual occurrence for a midsummer special election, he said. At a canvass launch I attended in Akron over the weekend, more than three dozen people showed up, including several first-timers. As I followed Democratic canvassers there and in Cleveland over two days last week, not a single voter who answered their door was unaware of the election or undecided about how they’d vote. “It’s kind of an easy campaign,” Michael Todd, a canvasser with the group Ohio Citizen Action in Cleveland, told me. “Not a whole lot of convincing needs to be done.”

    The response has prompted some Democrats to see the August election as an unexpected opportunity to reawaken a moribund state party. The referendum is a first for Swing Left, which has exclusively invested in candidate races since it formed after Trump’s victory in 2016. “It’s a great example of what we’re seeing across the country, which is the fight for reproductive freedom and the fight for democracy becoming closely attached,” the group’s executive director, Yasmin Radjy, told me in Akron. “We also think it’s really important to build momentum in Ohio, a state that we need to keep investing in.”

    A win next week would make the abortion referendum a heavy favorite to pass in November. And although Ohio is unlikely to regain its status as a presidential swing state in 2024, it could help determine control of Congress. Brown’s bid for a fourth term is expected to be one of the hardest-fought Senate races in the country, and at least three Ohio districts could be up for grabs in the closely divided House.

    For Democrats like Caffrey, the temptation to think bigger about a comeback in Ohio is tempered by the lingering uncertainty about next week’s outcome—whether the party will finally close out a victory in a state that has turned red, or confront another disappointment. “It would be hard for Democrats in Ohio to feel complacent. I wish we would be in a position to feel complacent,” Caffrey said with a smile. “This is more about building hope.”

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  • Abortion divides Iowa GOP voters ahead of crucial first primary debate | CNN Politics

    Abortion divides Iowa GOP voters ahead of crucial first primary debate | CNN Politics

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    Sioux City, Iowa
    CNN
     — 

    Ask Lisa McGaffey if she has ever voted for a Democrat and there is no pause.

    “Oh, heavens, no,” she says quickly and emphatically. “Oh, no. There’s no – abortion. … They have to have a chance to grow up. They have to have the chance. You never know who that’s going to be.”

    McGaffey is a loyal Donald Trump supporter and is grateful for his three appointments to the conservative Supreme Court majority that erased Roe v. Wade last year and returned the question of abortion rights to the states.

    Two-hundred miles away, in the fast growing Des Moines suburbs, Betsy Sarcone takes a different view.

    Iowa, like Florida, in recent months enacted a law outlawing most abortions at six weeks. Sarcone – a single mother and a Catholic and Republican who told us, “I don’t believe in abortion” – thinks that is too restrictive.

    “I agree with a time limit,” Sarcone said in a recent interview in her West Des Moines home. “I’ve had three babies grow inside me. I agree when you feel them kicking and you feel them moving – that’s in my heart, is a time when that (a cutoff to abortion access) would be. Which is around say, like 18 weeks, something like that typically. So in my heart, that’s what I feel. I again, I just I don’t know that much further than that it’s somebody’s place to judge.”

    Abortion is among the fault lines in the 2024 Republican campaign, and a likely debate topic in Wednesday’s first primary season showdown between Republican candidates – all of whom support abortion restrictions. It’s also an issue that splits GOP voters, even those who share an opposition to the procedure. Sarcone and McGaffey, for example, are among a group of Iowa Republicans we are tracking as part of a CNN project designed to view the 2024 campaign through the eyes of voters – to see firsthand if their views change over the course of the cycle, and if so, why.

    Among that group is also Chris Mudd, a businessman in Cedar Falls and a Trump supporter, who signals a potential warning for GOP hopefuls on abortion.

    “I’m a pro-life guy,” Mudd told us. “But I think it is a losing issue for Republicans.” Of the six-week bans enacted in Florida and later in his home state of Iowa, Mudd said: “I think that was a mistake.”

    Among Republican candidates there’s some disagreement over whether a national ban should be a priority, or whether the issue is best left to the states.

    Trump, for example, has called the six-week ban signed by DeSantis in Florida “too harsh.” The GOP front-runner is choosing to skip the Milwaukee debate.

    Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina favors a federal law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mike Pence, the former vice president and Indiana governor, supports a six-week federal ban.

    GOP rivals Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum describe themselves as staunchly “pro life” but argue the principled conservative position is that each state should make its own law. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has said she would sign a 15-week national ban, but also frequently notes the votes aren’t there in the current congressional balance of power and that the federal conversation is best put aside unless and until there is more consensus.

    Democrats see opportunity in almost any Republican conversation about abortion, citing how the issue has consistently helped galvanize voters in elections – from ballot initiatives to last year’s midterms – since the Dobbs decision.

    The last public poll on the issue in Iowa was in March, for the Des Moines Register.

    A clear majority, 61% of Iowans, said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But the first competition here is the Republican caucuses, and the poll found that 59% of Republicans and 64% of evangelicals believed abortion should be illegal in most or all cases.

    Sarcone, a suburban Des Moines real estate agent, made a point worth remembering as the candidates debate for the first time this week.

    “I don’t know that I will have any candidate that I agree with on everything,” she said. “So the character, the leadership, the military is very important to me.”

    To that end, she listed DeSantis as her early favorite, despite her opposition to a six-week ban, but said she would consider Haley, Scott and perhaps others, too.

    Our first visit with this voter group, before the first debate, was to get a sense of how they rate the candidates and the issues early on.

    McGaffey, an administrator at the Jolly Time Pop Corn company, was the only member of the group who brought up the abortion issue in our conversations.

    Mudd, the pro-Trump businessman who’s wary of the GOP leaning too heavily into abortion, listed the economy as his lead issue.

    Similarly, attorney Priscilla Forsyth from Sioux City said abortion was not an issue on her debate priority list.

    “Issues like abortion are not my issue,” she said. “A lot of the social issues are not. It’s all the economy, really.”

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  • Abortion politics take center stage after Biden campaign capitalizes on GOP debate rift | CNN Politics

    Abortion politics take center stage after Biden campaign capitalizes on GOP debate rift | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    More than a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republican candidates remain split over how to move forward on abortion, a political liability Democrats are eager to exploit regardless of who becomes the Republican nominee.

    The GOP divide was laid bare on the debate stage this week, as candidates backed a 15-week abortion ban, deferred to the states or tried to split the difference. President Joe Biden’s campaign responded immediately in a new digital ad, painting the field’s top contenders as extreme on the issue – and signaling what the Democratic campaign is likely to focus on in the coming year.

    When it comes to the future of abortion access, Republican candidates are facing pressure on all sides.

    GOP-led state legislatures have passed a wave of complete or near-total abortion bans that go beyond what most Americans support. Voters have supported abortion rights ballot initiatives and candidates in several key elections over the last year. And anti-abortion and evangelical groups are demanding presidential candidates go on the offensive and get as specific as possible.

    “The debate reflected the many different views among Republicans regarding abortion policy: not only what the policy ought to be, but what level of government ought to be making the decisions,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “There’s no real consensus at this point.”

    Biden’s reelection campaign has also homed in on remarks GOP candidates made on abortion during the debate. In talking points sent out to surrogates Wednesday night, the campaign claimed Republicans “spent two hours shouting over each other on … who has the best plan to ban abortion nationwide,” CNN reported Thursday.

    Biden’s team followed up Friday morning with a digital ad, “These Guys,” highlighting comments former President Donald Trump, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have made on abortion, including a clip of DeSantis on the debate stage. The ad, aimed at women in seven battleground states, is part of a $25 million ad campaign CNN first reported earlier this week.

    The ad also reaffirms Biden’s stance on abortion: that the U.S. should maintain the standard set in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which allowed for abortion up until fetal viability, generally viewed as around 24 weeks.

    “This ad is the first of many that will hold all MAGA Republicans accountable for their extreme, losing positions throughout the cycle, while also highlighting the President’s support for women and their fundamental freedoms,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

    Polling suggests that Americans support some legal abortion, but with limits. Seventy-three percent of respondents to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released last month said abortion should be allowed during the first six weeks of pregnancy, including 88% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans surveyed. Asked if states should allow abortion at 15 weeks, 51% of those surveyed said yes, including 75% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans.

    Only 27% of those surveyed supported allowing abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy.

    Democrats are hoping that abortion access will continue to be an issue that helps them with voters heading into 2024. Since last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned Roe and left abortion access up to individual states, Democrats and abortion rights activists have racked up a number of wins in special elections and ballot initiatives, and the party overperformed in the 2022 midterm elections.

    Trump – whose handpicked nominees lost key Senate races in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia – went on to write a January social media post blaming the party’s midterm losses on “the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that insisted on No Exceptions.”

    Tom Bonier, chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic political targeting firm, said he expects abortion will be an even stronger issue for his party heading into the 2024 election.

    “The evidence that we’re seeing at this point is that abortion rights as a political issue is having an even greater impact than it did last year, which is saying a lot because it had a huge impact on elections in 2022,” he said.

    Bonier cited two causes for abortion’s growing influence. Voters, he said, no longer have to imagine what life would look like after Roe. They’re experiencing it firsthand. At the same time, Republicans have not adopted their message to address the political climate, he said. That dynamic was on display in the ad released by the Biden campaign Friday.

    “It literally speaks for itself as an issue at this point, that Republicans have not moderated, that in some ways they’ve actually got further to the right,” he said.

    Nearly two dozen states have moved to ban or restrict abortion in the wake of Dobbs. Some of the bans have been blocked in court, including the six-week limit DeSantis signed in April. Abortion is currently legal in Florida until 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    Republicans have begun to coalesce around the idea of a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, has called on candidates to support the 15-week limit at minimum, with room for states to pass more restrictive measures.

    “A number of GOP officeholders and even presidential aspirants use ‘states’ rights’ as an excuse to tape their mouths shut on abortion,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, wrote in a Thursday Washington Post op-ed with former Trump White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway. “This should not, and will not, stand.”

    Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and DeSantis all declined to commit to signing a 15-week ban, while former Vice President Mike Pence and Scott did. The latter two criticized their opponents in post-debate interviews. Scott said in a Thursday Fox News interview that it is “a problem for our nation” that some candidates said they would not commit to a 15-week ban, while Pence also took a jab at Trump.

    “Whether it be with Gov. Desantis or Nikki Haley or others onstage, frankly most of the candidates running, including the one that did not show up tonight, are all trying to relegate the question of abortion as a states-only issue,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash on Wednesday.

    Trump has not said whether he would back a 15-week ban and has suggested he would leave it with the states. In May, he criticized the six-week ban DeSantis signed as “too harsh” for the anti-abortion movement but declined to say whether he supported it personally. A month later he told the audience at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference that while there “remains a vital role for the federal government” to play in abortion policy, people want it to be a state-level issue.

    “I believe the greatest progress for pro-life is now being made in the states, where everyone wanted to be,” Trump said. Pence used his remarks at the same conference to call on every GOP candidate to back a 15-week ban as a national standard.

    If a consensus is reached it will likely be whatever the eventual Republican nominee backs, though Ayres would advise candidates to leave the issue to the states — if that’s what they personally believe, he said.

    “Ultimately, a candidate has to look into his or her heart and soul to find a position they’re comfortable with, otherwise, they’ll never be able to articulate it effectively,” he said.

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  • Nikki Haley’s gender is rarely mentioned on the campaign trail but always present | CNN Politics

    Nikki Haley’s gender is rarely mentioned on the campaign trail but always present | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When Nikki Haley took the Republican presidential debate stage alongside her seven male rivals last month, she shone a spotlight on her gender only once – evoking a former British prime minister.

    “This is exactly why Margaret Thatcher said, ‘If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman,’” the former South Carolina governor interjected as Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy sparred during the Milwaukee debate.

    Haley, the only female competitor in the GOP race, has not made her gender central to her campaign pitch. Instead, she has zeroed in on the need for a new generation of leadership.

    Republican voters who are considering supporting Haley told CNN they welcome the fact that she doesn’t lead with her gender as she campaigns, but many said her experience as a mother and a military spouse were part of her appeal.

    “It’s not necessary to point out that a female would bring a fresh perspective,” said Melinda Tourangeau, a Republican voter from New Hampshire. “She has one, she’s nailing it and I think that stands on its own merits.”

    GOP strategists say that by simply showing up as who she is, and weaving elements of her gender into her pitch, Haley is likely to boost her support among suburban female voters – a constituency that helped fuel President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.

    “There’s no need for her to light her hair on fire and [stress] the fact that she’s a woman because she uses her ability and experience as a way to connect with voters,” said GOP strategist Alice Stewart, a CNN political commentator who advised former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann on her 2012 presidential bid. “What suburban women want is a candidate that’s going to speak the truth, and Nikki Haley is out there being truthful about Donald Trump’s record. She’s being truthful about what we can actually accomplish in the future on abortion.”

    When Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, speaks on the campaign trail about personal experiences that have informed her policy positions, she underscores her identity as a mother, wife and female politician.

    “I am pro-life because my husband was adopted, and I live with that blessing every day. I am pro-life because we had trouble having both of our children,” Haley has said in explaining her stance on abortion.

    She expanded on that position at the Milwaukee debate last month in calling for a “respectful” approach to the divisive topic.

    “Can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions?” Haley said. “And can’t we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?”

    Haley also spoke of the difficulty of enacting a federal abortion ban, pointing to the difficulty in overcoming the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster.

    It was a nuanced perspective for a GOP candidate, and one that caught voters’ attention.

    “When she talked about abortion, I liked that because although she is totally pro-life, she is willing to make some concessions because she said it’s not about her. It’s about what the country thinks,” a female GOP voter from South Carolina told CNN after the debate. “She’s trying to meet people where they are or at least do away with late-term abortions and things like that.”

    Hear Nikki Haley answer questions about abortion

    Haley’s campaign said it raised more than $1 million in less than 72 hours following that first primary debate. The campaign also said it raised more online in the 24 hours after the debate than it had on any other day since Haley launched her presidential bid in February.

    GOP strategists believe that Haley’s approach to the abortion issue was a key factor in that surged interest.

    “I think there are two key issues that she addressed on the debate stage that are helping in fueling their fundraising drive, and the nuanced position on abortion is one and her strong support for Israel,” Stewart said.

    In her stump speeches, Haley also draws from personal experiences – highlighting her role as mother – to speak against the participation of transgender girls in girls’ sports.

    “The idea that we have biological boys playing in girls’ sports, it is the women’s issue of our time,” she said during a CNN town hall in June. “My daughter ran track in high school. I don’t even know how I would have that conversation with her.”

    Similarly, when Haley speaks about standing up for veterans’ families, she speaks about her husband, Michael Haley, a major in the South Carolina National Guard whose brigade deployed to Africa earlier this year in support of the United States Africa Command. He previously served in Afghanistan in 2013 when his wife was serving as governor, which meant she was a working mom alone at home with two children.

    “The first three months when he deployed to Afghanistan, one of them was crying every night,” Haley said at the Iowa State Fair this summer. “I feel for every military family out there because it is survival mode.”

    When asked about her gender, Haley’s campaign noted that it is a part of who she is but not her only defining trait.

    “Nikki is proud to be a woman, a military spouse, a mom, a governor, an ambassador, and an accountant. All these experiences make her the tough and honest leader she is. She brought this toughness to the establishment as South Carolina governor. She brought it to the UN when she took on the world’s dictators. And she will bring it to the White House,” campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement.

    Haley is the fifth prominent Republican woman to run for president, following Margaret Chase Smith in 1964; Elizabeth Dole, who dropped out before the 2000 primaries; Bachmann in 2012; and Carly Fiorina in 2016.

    In comparison to Haley, Fiorina spoke more often and more directly about her gender. That move was dictated, at least in part, by Trump attacking her looks and the leading opposition candidate also being a woman.

    “[Whether] or not you’re ready to … support me, in your heart of hearts, every single one of you know you would love to see me debate Hillary Clinton,” Fiorina told voters on the stump.

    Haley’s competition this cycle is different, and so is her tact.

    “She is a woman, but she leads with her merit and experience,” said Iowa state Sen. Chris Cournoyer, a Haley supporter who touted the fact that the former governor does not play the “woman card.”

    At an August event in New Hampshire for female Republican voters, Haley’s identity as a woman was celebrated.

    “Nikki Haley is an empowered woman, who empowers women, and she really gets it as a former state representative,” Elizabeth Girard, the president of the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women, said as she introduced Haley, who served three terms in the South Carolina House prior to her election as governor.

    SE CUpp unfiltered 0216

    SE Cupp: Nikki Haley promises youth, but will her policies reflect that?

    But when Haley took the stage – facing a gaggle of female voters – she didn’t tailor her message to the audience. She ticked through her regular stump speech, closing out with her signature call for a new generational leader and a candidate who can win the general election.

    Many of the potential female voters in the room that day appreciated Haley’s approach.

    “I think that’s a good thing,” Kim Rice, 50, told CNN after the event when asked about Haley not making her gender a focus of her pitch. “I don’t think that should be the reason people vote for her. I think her policy points are her strongest points. That’s what should draw people to her.”

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  • Rep. Nancy Mace says Republicans in swing districts are ‘walking the plank’ because of abortion restrictions | CNN Politics

    Rep. Nancy Mace says Republicans in swing districts are ‘walking the plank’ because of abortion restrictions | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    GOP Rep. Nancy Mace has a warning for her party about some efforts to restrict abortion without exceptions – and how it could affect moderate House Republicans on whom their narrow majority depends.

    “I think they’re walking the plank,” the South Carolina Republican told CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview that aired Sunday, when asked if members in moderate districts like hers are doomed.

    “I’m pro-life. I have a fantastic pro-life voting record, but I also understand that we cannot be a**holes to women,” said Mace, who has been vocal about including exceptions for rape in measures to restrict the procedure.

    The two-term congresswoman went public about her own experience of rape during an abortion debate in the South Carolina state house before coming to Congress. “Being the victim of rape, you don’t ever get over it,” she told Bash, noting how the experience has affected her and her outspoken advocacy for exceptions.

    “As a Republican woman in 2023, this is a very lonely place to be,” said Mace, who was first elected to her coastal South Carolina congressional district in 2020. “Because I feel like I’m the only woman on our side of the aisle advocating for things that all women should care about.”

    Still, Mace has faced criticism for voting the party line, even on measures where abortion rights are at stake.

    “I think I get labeled a flip-flopper unfairly because of that,” Mace said. “I have my own ideology that I believe in. I’ll take the vote. That doesn’t mean I want to take the vote.”

    She argues she has tried to secure changes to measures she may not fully agree with. “I have been very effective at trying to push the ball – not always – but doing the best that I can. I’m only one person, and a lot of times I’m doing it alone and by myself.”

    In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade last year, Mace – the first woman to graduate from the Citadel’s Corps of Cadets – has often said she’s looking for ways to show that the GOP is “pro-women.” In her interview with Bash, she called on lawmakers to address the foster care and child care systems, for example, arguing that having an abortion is a decision no woman wants to make.

    In April, the congresswoman urged the Food and Drug Administration to ignore a ruling by a federal judge that suspended the approval of a medication drug used for abortion. (The Supreme Court subsequently said that the drug and regulations that make it accessible would remain in place for the time being.)

    “This is an issue that Republicans have been largely on the wrong side of,” Mace told CNN at the time.

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  • Donald Trump is testing the resilience of Iowa’s evangelical voters | CNN Politics

    Donald Trump is testing the resilience of Iowa’s evangelical voters | CNN Politics

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    Des Moines, Iowa
    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump is testing the resilience of his evangelical support in Iowa, a key constituency that could solidify – or slow – his march to the Republican presidential nomination.

    The former president’s latest comments on abortion, in which he called Florida’s six-week ban a “terrible mistake” and declined to offer a clear view on a federal ban, are being closely scrutinized by his rivals and Christian conservatives, a crucial GOP voting bloc in Iowa.

    “For evangelicals, there are probably four issues that matter. Life is usually right at the top,” said Mike Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ. “Most people, the way they evaluate presidential elections, is what the gas price is. But for an evangelical? No.”

    Less than four months before the Iowa caucuses open the Republican nominating contest, nuances on abortion policy will be at the center of conversation here among faith leaders like Demastus, who has met with most of the GOP candidates.

    He expressed concern over Trump’s remarks on abortion since the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But he also acknowledged that Trump’s key role in the decision – appointing three of the six justices who voted with the majority – helps the former president keep evangelical voters in his corner, at least for now.

    “The fact that Trump is leading in polls – he is – but you can’t take it for granted. There’s so many unknowns with Trump right now,” Demastus said in an interview. “There’s a loyalty with Trump, and people that follow him. You can’t just peel that away from some, but I think many people in the evangelical community right now are willing to hear from other people.”

    Whether Iowa Republicans are willing to hear from – or actually vote for – one of Trump’s many challengers is an open question. The answer could rest inside Iowa churches, where candidates are going to great lengths to win over evangelicals, who in 2016 comprised nearly two-thirds of all GOP caucus attendees.

    “They are very appreciative of the former president, but they are exhausted as well,” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of influential Christian group The Family Leader. “Iowa is tailor-made to upend Trump. If he loses Iowa, there’s a competitive nomination process. If he wins Iowa, I think it’s over.”

    The Iowa caucuses, in effect, have become a furious race for second place.

    While Vander Plaats has been a leading Trump critic, his assessment of the Iowa caucuses is shared by allies of the former president, who plans to step up his Iowa appearances for the rest of the year. Starting with a visit to Dubuque on Wednesday, the Trump campaign is intensifying its focus here in hopes of “squeezing off the oxygen” for other rivals, a Trump adviser told CNN.

    The pursuit of evangelical voters is a top priority for most candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who bowed his head as he stood at the center of a prayer circle during a weekend stop at the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ.

    “Our rights are endowed by God,” DeSantis told those assembled in the sanctuary. “They do not come from the government.”

    The Florida governor leaned into the abortion debate Monday, seizing on Trump’s comments and offering a warning to voters during an interview with Radio Iowa: “I think all pro-lifers should know that he’s preparing to sell you out.”

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott called out his rivals by name Monday night at a town hall in Mason City, Iowa, telling voters which GOP contenders did not support a federal abortion ban. “I will use my entire presidency fighting for a 15-week limit,” he said.

    Scott also has long been highlighting his faith, often weaving in Bible verses on the campaign trail and in his television ads. Former Vice President Mike Pence frequently talks about his religious awakening and his support for a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, as a minimum.

    Trump was the only major presidential candidate to bypass the annual Faith and Freedom Coalition’s fall banquet this past weekend in Des Moines, but Rebekah Gerling proudly wore a Trump sticker as she walked through the convention center. She said she supports the former president as strongly as she ever has.

    “I love everything that he stands for,” Gerling said. “He’s willing to stand up for other people who do love God and believe.”

    When Gerling was asked whether she was troubled by the criminal indictments the former president is facing, her friend, Theresa Gibson, also wearing a Trump sticker, jumped in before she could answer, calling the charges “false accusations.”

    “They’re just going after him because he’s the front-runner,” Gibson said, “and he’s very highly supported.”

    Sally Hofmann, a Republican voter who said faith drives many of her decisions, credits Trump for his appointments to the Supreme Court. But she said she is open to supporting another candidate when she walks into her neighborhood caucus in January.

    “I like a lot of what Trump has done in office, but his personality concerns me a little bit,” Hofmann said. “I like what Nikki Haley is doing. I like DeSantis too. I’m in that range.”

    She said some of her friends and her daughter are concerned about Trump’s rhetoric and conduct. She said it bothers her too, but she’s willing to look beyond it if necessary.

    “Like I told my daughter, if I go to a doctor, and that doctor is such a good doctor to evaluate and treat my issue but doesn’t have the personality that I’m most comfortable with, I’ll still go to that doctor,” Hofmann said. “So that’s the way I look at Trump.”

    Inside the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, where Demastus has preached for more than two decades, he explained how he came around to Trump in the first place. He supported Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in 2016 and was suspicious of Trump’s intentions before he took office.

    “He started to do what he said he would do,” Demastus said. “I said some pretty harsh things about him at the time, but let me be clear: He won me over. He won me over because he was consistent.”

    For now, Demastus echoes the sentiment of many other faith leaders, saying he is undecided, waiting and watching as the Republican presidential primary unfolds. He believes the indictments against Trump are politically motivated but worries they could weaken his chances in the general election.

    “With all the litigation that’s going on, what’s going to happen? Is he going to receive a felony conviction or not?” Demastus said, ticking through a list of uncertainties hanging over the race. “I think that’s why a lot of these candidates are still in it.”

    This story has been updated with additional reaction.

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  • Takeaways from the second Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from the second Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The second 2024 Republican presidential primary debate ended just as it began: with former President Donald Trump – who hasn’t yet appeared alongside his rivals onstage – as the party’s dominant front-runner.

    The seven GOP contenders in Wednesday night’s showdown at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California provided a handful of memorable moments, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley unloading what often seemed like the entire field’s pent-up frustration with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

    “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” she said to him at one point.

    Two candidates criticized Trump’s absence, as well. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was “missing in action.” Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called the former president “Donald Duck” and said he “hides behind his golf clubs” rather than defending his record on stage.

    Chris Christie takes up debate time to send Trump a clear message

    The GOP field also took early shots at President Joe Biden. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said Biden, rather than joining the striking auto workers’ union on the picket line Tuesday in Michigan, should be on the southern border. Former Vice President Mike Pence said Biden should be “on the unemployment line.” North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said Biden was interfering with “free markets.”

    However, what played out in the debate, hosted by Fox Business Network and Univision, is unlikely to change the trajectory of a GOP race in which Trump has remained dominant in national and early-state polling.

    And the frequently messy, hard-to-track crosstalk could have led many viewers to tune out entirely.

    Here are takeaways from the second GOP primary debate:

    Trump might have played it safe by skipping the debates and taking a running-as-an-incumbent approach to the 2024 GOP primary.

    It’s hard to see, though, how he would pay a significant price in the eyes of the party’s voters for missing Wednesday night’s messy engagement.

    Trump’s rivals took a few shots at him. DeSantis knocked him for deficit spending. Christie mocked him during the night’s early moments, calling him “Donald Duck” for skipping the debate and then in his final comments said he would vote Trump off the GOP island.

    “This guy has not only divided our party – he’s divided families all over this country. He’s divided friends all over this country,” Christie said. “He needs to be voted off the island and he needs to be taken out of this process.”

    However, Trump largely escaped serious scrutiny of his four years in the Oval Office from a field of rivals courting voters who have largely positive views of his presidency.

    “Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said in a statement.

    The second GOP primary debate was beset by interruptions, crosstalk and protracted squabbles between the candidates and moderators over speaking time.

    That’s tough for viewers trying to make sense of it all but even worse for these candidates as they attempted to stand out as viable alternatives to the absentee Trump.

    Further complicating the matter, some of the highest polling candidates after Trump – DeSantis and Haley – were among those least willing to dive into the muck, especially during the crucial first hour. The moderators repeatedly tried to clear the road for the Florida governor, at least in the beginning. But he was all but absent from the proceedings for the first 15 minutes.

    Ramaswamy fared somewhat better, speaking louder – and faster – than most of his rivals. But he was bogged down repeatedly when caught between his own talking points and cross-volleys of criticisms from frustrated candidates like Scott.

    The moderator group will likely get criticism for losing control of the room within the first half-hour, but even a messy debate tells voters something about the people taking part.

    All night, Scott seemed like he was looking for a fight with somebody and he finally got that when he set his sights on fellow South Carolinian Haley.

    He began his line of attack – which Haley interjected with a “Bring it” – by accusing her of spending $50,000 on curtains in a $15 million subsidized location during her time as the US ambassador to the United Nations.

    What ensued was the two Republicans going back and forth about the curtains. “Do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains,” Haley said, while Scott repeated, “Did you send them back? Did you send them back?” Haley then responded: “Did you send them back? You’re the one who works in Congress.”

    It wasn’t the most acrimonious moment of the night, but it was up there. The feuding between the two South Carolina natives seemed deep, but it’s worth remembering that about a decade ago, when Haley was governor, she appointed Scott to the Senate seat he currently holds after Republican Jim DeMint stepped down. That confidence in Scott seems to have dissolved in this presidential race.

    Confronted by his Republican competitors for the first time in earnest, DeSantis delivered an uneven performance from the center of the stage – a spot that is considerably less secure than it was heading into the first debate in Milwaukee.

    Despite rules that allowed candidates to respond if they were invoked, DeSantis let Fox slip to commercial break when Pence seemed to blame the governor for a jury decision to award a life sentence, not the death penalty, to the mass murderer in the Parkland high school shooting. (DeSantis opposed the decision and championed a law that made Florida the state with the lowest threshold to put someone on death row going forward.) Nor did he respond when Pence accused DeSantis of inflating Florida’s budget by 30% during his tenure.

    He later let Scott get the last word on Florida’s Black history curriculum standards and struggled to defend himself when Haley – accurately – pointed out that he took steps to block fracking in Florida on his second day in office.

    Before the first debate in Milwaukee, a top strategist for a pro-DeSantis super PAC told donors that “79% of the people tonight are going to watch the debate and turn it off after 19 minutes.”

    By that measure, the Florida governor managed to first speak Wednesday night just in the nick of time – 16 minutes into the debate. And when he finally spoke, he continued the sharper attacks on the GOP front-runner that he has previewed in recent weeks.

    DeSantis equated Trump’s absence in California to Biden, who DeSantis said was “completely missing in action for leadership” on the economy, blaming him for inflation and the autoworkers strike.

    “And you know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action,” DeSantis said. “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record.”

    But DeSantis then largely pulled back from further targeting Trump – until a post-debate Fox News appearance when he challenged the former president to a one-on-one face-off.

    DeSantis ended the debate on a strong note. He took charge by rejecting moderator Dana Perino’s attempts to get the candidates to vote one of their competitors “off the island.” He ended his night forcefully dismissing a suggestion that Trump’s lead in the polls held meaning in September.

    “Polls don’t elect presidents, voters elect presidents,” he said, before pointing a finger at Trump for Republicans’ electoral underperformance in the last three elections.

    But as the super PAC strategist previously pointed out: By then, who was watching?

    In the final minutes of the debate, co-host Ilia Calderón of Univision asked Pence how he would reach out to those Latino voters who felt the Republican Party was hostile or didn’t care about them.

    “I’m incredibly proud of the tax cut and tax reform bill,” he said, referring to Republicans’ sweeping 2017 tax law. He also cited low unemployment rates for Hispanic Americans recorded during the Trump-Pence administration.

    Scott, faced with the same question, said it was important to lead by example. “My chief of staff is the only Hispanic female chief of staff in the Senate,” he said. “I hired her because she was the best, highest-qualified person we have.”

    Calderón focused much of her time on a series of policy questions that highlighted the candidates’ records on immigration and gun violence. At times, some of them struggled to respond directly.

    She asked Pence if he would work with Congress to find a permanent solution for people who were brought to the country illegally as children. The Trump-Pence administration ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gave those young people protected status. She repeated the question after Pence focused his answer on his work securing the border. He then talked about his time in Congress.

    “Let me tell you, I served in Congress for 12 years, although it seemed longer,” he said. “But you know, something I’ve done different than everybody on this stage is I’ve actually secured reform in Congress.”

    The candidates – and moderators – shy away from abortion talk

    It took more than a 100 minutes on Wednesday night for the first question on abortion to be asked.

    About five minutes later, the conversation had moved on. What is potentially the most potent driver (or flipper) of votes in the coming election was afforded less time than TikTok.

    Tellingly, no one onstage seemed to mind.

    Perino introduced the subject by asking DeSantis whether some Republicans were right to worry that the electoral backlash to abortion bans – or the prospect of their passage – would handicap the eventual GOP nominee.

    DeSantis, who signed a six-week ban in April, dismissed those concerns, pointing to his success in traditionally liberal parts of Florida on his way to winning a second term in 2022. Then he swiped at Trump for calling the new laws “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

    Christie took a similar path, arguing that his two terms as governor of New Jersey, a traditionally blue state, showed it was possible for anti-abortion leaders to win in a environments supportive of abortion rights.

    And with that, the abortion “debate” in Simi Valley ended abruptly. No more questions and no attempts by the rest of the candidates to interject or otherwise join the chat.

    Candidates pile on Ramaswamy

    Some of the candidates onstage didn’t want to have a repeat of the first debate, in which Ramaswamy managed to stand out as a formidable debater and showman.

    Early in Wednesday’s debate, Scott went after the tech entrepreneur, saying his business record included ties to the Chinese Communist Party and money going to Hunter Biden. The visibly annoyed Ramaswamy shifted gears from praising all the other candidates onstage to defending his business record. But Scott and Ramaswamy ended up talking over each other.

    A little later on Pence began an answer with a knock on Ramaswamy, saying, “I’m glad Vivek pulled out of his business deal in China.” At another point after Ramaswamy had responded to a question about his use of TikTok, Haley jumped in, saying, “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber from what you say” and then going on to say, “We can’t trust you. We can’t trust you.” As Ramaswamy tried to readopt his unity tone, Scott could be heard trying to interrupt him.

    Despite the efforts of moderators to pin them down, DeSantis and Pence struggled to respond when challenged on their respective records on health care.

    Asked about the Trump administration’s failure to end the Affordable Care Act as promised, Pence opted instead to answer a previous question about mass gun violence. When Perino pushed Pence one more time to explain why Obamacare remains not just intact but popular, the former vice president once again demurred.

    Fox’s Stuart Varney similarly pressed DeSantis to explain why 2.5 million Floridians don’t have health insurance.

    DeSantis found a familiar foil for Republicans in California: inflation. Varney, though, said it didn’t explain why Florida has one of the highest uninsurance rates in the country, to which DeSantis had little response.

    “Our state’s a dynamic state,” DeSantis said, before pointing to Florida’s population boom and the low level of welfare benefits offered there.

    Haley, though, appeared ready to debate health care, arguing for transparency in prices to lessen the power of insurance companies and providers and overhauling lawsuit rules to make it harder to sue doctors.

    “How can we be the best country in the world and have the most expensive health care in the world?” Haley said.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Klobuchar says she supports allowing abortion restrictions in late pregnancy | CNN Politics

    Klobuchar says she supports allowing abortion restrictions in late pregnancy | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sunday she would support allowing limitations on abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy, breaking with many Democrats in Congress who have been hesitant to offer specifics on abortion limitations.

    “I support allowing for limitations in the third trimester that do not interfere with the life or health of the women,” Klobuchar told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday.

    The third trimester in a pregnancy begins at 27 weeks. Less than 1% of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later, according to a 2020 report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Abortion has become an especially potent political topic in the year since the monumental US Supreme Court decision one year ago to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the federal constitutional right to abortion nationwide. More than a dozen US states have banned or severely restricted access to the procedure since the ruling.

    “What I support – and I will be very clear about this – is Roe v. Wade, which does allow for limitations, but it also protects the life of the woman and the health of the woman,” Klobuchar said Sunday.

    “I think that is the best way to go. But you look at what they are doing, their leading Republican candidates, Dana, are asking for abortion bans. Trump was on just last night gloating about how he had put these Supreme Court justices in place that had reversed Roe v. Wade.”

    Klobuchar has long articulated the need for some restrictions on late-term abortions, telling Bloomberg in 2019 “there are limits there in the third trimester that are very important – about – except for the health of the woman.”

    In the 2022 midterms, abortion was a crucial motivator for many voters, as CNN exit polls showed that 46% of people said that abortion was the most important issue to their vote. Abortion is also likely to be a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, as administration officials highlight what Democrats have done to protect access to abortion.

    “MAGA Republicans made clear that they don’t intend to stop with the Dobbs decision. No, they won’t, until they get a national ban on abortion,” Biden said this week, promising to issue a veto if a national ban is ever passed by Congress.

    This headline and story have been updated.

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  • Abortion Could Matter Even More in 2024

    Abortion Could Matter Even More in 2024

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    Last month, during a meeting of Democrats in rural southwestern Iowa, a man raised his hand. “What are three noncontroversial issues that Democrats should be talking about right now?” he asked the evening’s speaker, Rob Sand, Iowa’s state auditor and a minor state celebrity.

    I watched from the side of the room as Sand answered quickly. The first two issues Democrats should talk about are new state laws dealing with democracy and education, he told the man. And then they should talk about their support for abortion rights. “People in the Iowa Republican Party and their activist base” want to “criminalize abortion,” Sand said.

    I registered this response with a surprised blink. Noncontroversial? Democrats in competitive states, and especially committed centrists like Sand, aren’t usually so eager to foreground abortion on the campaign trail. This seemed new.

    Read: The most dangerous Democrat in Iowa

    Ascribing a narrative to some elections is easy. The past two midterm cycles are a case in point. The Democrats’ 2018 blue wave, for example, will go down as a woman-led backlash to a grab-’em-by-the-groin president. In 2022, Democrats performed better than expected, according to many analysts, because abortion rights were on the ballot. Now, a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Democrats want to do it again.

    They’re betting that they can re-create and even supercharge their successes last year by centering abortion rights in their platform once again in the lead-up to 2024. They want all of their elected officials—even state auditors—talking about the issue. “If we can do all that, we’re gonna be telling the same story in December 2024 that we told in 2022,” Yasmin Radjy, the executive director of the progressive political group Swing Left, told me.

    But this time, Republicans might be better prepared for the fight.

    After the leaked draft opinion before the Dobbs decision last May, many in Washington assumed that abortion would fade from voters’ minds by the time November rolled around. “As we get further away from the shock of that event, of Roe being overturned, you don’t think that … people will sort of lose interest?” CNN’s Don Lemon asked the Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier in September 2022. People did not. Two months later, Democrats celebrated better-than-expected results—avoiding not only the kind of “shellacking” that Barack Obama’s party had suffered in 2010, but the widely predicted red wave. The Democrats narrowly lost the House but retained control of the Senate, flipping Pennsylvania in the process. Abortion-rights campaigners won ballot measures in six states.

    “The lesson has been well learned,” Bonier told me last week. “This is an issue that is incredibly effective, both for mobilizing voters but also for winning over swing voters.”

    Read: Is Gen Z coming for the GOP?

    The latest polling suggests that the issue is very much alive. A record-high number of registered U.S. voters say that abortion is the most important factor in their decision about whom to vote for, and most of those voters support abortion rights, according to Gallup. Rather than growing less salient over time, abortion may even have gained potency: Roughly a quarter of Americans say that recent state efforts to block abortion access have made them more supportive of abortion rights, not less, according to a USA Today poll last week. Not only that, but recent data suggest that demand for abortion has not been much deterred, despite post-Dobbs efforts to restrict it.

    Americans have watched as Republicans in 20 states restricted or banned abortion outright, and activists took aim at interstate travel for abortions and the pill mifepristone. Stories about pregnant women at risk of bleeding out or becoming septic after being denied abortions have lit up the internet for months. All of this attention and sentiment seem unlikely to dissipate by November 2024.

    “Republicans ran races on this issue for decades,” the Democratic strategist Lis Smith told me. “You’re gonna see Democrats run on this issue for decades to come as well.”

    Already, Democratic activists plan to engage swing voters by forcing the issue in as many states as possible. So far, legislators in New York and Maryland have introduced abortion-related ballot measures for 2024. Similar efforts are under way in other states, including Florida, Arizona, Missouri, South Dakota, and Iowa.

    Smith and her fellow party operatives are confident that they’ve landed on a message that works—especially in purple states where candidates need to win over at least a few moderates and independents. The most successful Democrats last year anchored their abortion messages around the concept of personal liberty, Swing Left’s Radjy told me, because it was “the single issue that is equally popular among far left, far right, center left, and center right.” Radjy shared with me a research report that concluded: “With limited attention and resources, [candidates should] lead with the freedom to decide. Freedom is resonating with the base and conflicted supporters, as well as Soft Biden and Soft Trump women.”

    Smith echoed this reframing. “Republican politicians want to insert themselves into women’s personal medical decisions,” she said, by way of exemplifying the message. “They want to take away this critical freedom from you.” In her view, that gives Democratic candidates a decisive advantage: They don’t even have to say the word abortion; they only have to use the language of freedom for people to be receptive.

    Joe Biden has never been the most comfortable or natural messenger on abortion. But even he is giving the so-called freedom framework a try. Freedom is the first word in the president’s reelection-announcement ad. Republicans, he says in a voice-over, are “dictating what health-care decisions women can make”; they are “banning books, and telling people who they can love.”

    Read: The new pro-life movement has a plan to end abortion

    It’s helpful, Democratic strategists told me, that the Republicans jockeying for the presidential nomination have been murky at best on the issue. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley held a press conference in April to explain that she sees a federal role in restricting abortion, but wouldn’t say what. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina was foggy on his own commitments in interviews before appearing to support a 15-week national ban. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who recently signed a six-week limit on abortion, talks about that ban selectively. The leader of the primary pack, Donald Trump, has said that abortion laws should be left to the states, but told a reporter recently that he, too, is “looking at” a 15-week restriction.

    Trump clearly wants to appease the primary base while keeping some room to maneuver in the general election. But if he’s the nominee, Democrats say, he’ll have to answer for the end of Roe, as well as the anti-abortion positions advocated by other Republicans. “When I worked for Obama in 2012, as rapid-response director, we tied Mitt Romney to the most extreme positions in his party,” Smith told me. If Trump is the abortion-banning GOP’s nominee, they will “hang that around his neck like a millstone.”

    I found it difficult to locate Republican strategists willing to talk with me about abortion, and even fewer who see it as a winning issue for their party. One exception was the Republican pollster and former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, who says that Republicans can be successful in campaigning on abortion—if they talk about it the right way. At a press conference celebrating the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, hosted by the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, Conway seemed to take a swipe at the former president—and the rest of the wishy-washy primary field. “If you’re running to be president of the United States, it should be easy to have a 15-minimum-week standard,” she said.

    To win on abortion is to frame your opponent as more extreme, and Democrats have made that easy, says Conway, who also acts as an adviser to the Republican National Committee. Broad federal legislation put forward by Democratic lawmakers last year, in response to the Dobbs leak, would prevent states from banning abortion “after fetal viability” for reasons of the mother’s life or health. Republicans claim that this means that Democrats support termination at all stages of pregnancy. Voters may not like outright bans on abortion, but they also generally don’t support abortion without limits. Conway advises Republican candidates to explain to voters whether they support exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, and get that out of the way—and then demand that their Democratic opponents define the time limits they favor. “I’d ask each and every one of them, ‘What are your exceptions? I’ve shown you mine,’” Conway told me.

    Read: The abortion absolutist

    Conway’s bullishness is belied by what some of her political allies are up to. While Democrats are pushing for ballot measures that will enshrine abortion rights into law, Republicans are trying to make it harder to pass state constitutional amendments. For example, after it became clear that a ballot measure could result in new abortion protections being added to the Ohio Constitution, state Republicans proposed their own ballot measure asking voters in a special election later this summer to raise the threshold for passing constitutional amendments.

    This scheme does not demonstrate faith that a majority of voters are with them. But it does set up Ohio as the first practical test of abortion’s salience as a political issue in 2024. If Democrats can get their voters to show up this August in the name of abortion rights, maybe they can do it next year too.

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    Elaine Godfrey

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  • New York governor signs bill to legally protect doctors who prescribe abortion pills for out-of-state patients into law | CNN Politics

    New York governor signs bill to legally protect doctors who prescribe abortion pills for out-of-state patients into law | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law Friday that legally protects doctors who prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in states where abortion services are outlawed or restricted.

    “We are witnessing a shameful regression of women’s rights in this country as abortion access is restricted in states across the nation,” Hochul said in a news release, adding that the law will ensure that more women will be able to access reproductive health care.

    The measure – passed by the state legislature Tuesday – will block out-of-state litigation, prohibiting prosecution against doctors in New York who provide telehealth services, prescribe medication abortion, or deliver reproductive health care to patients living in states with restrictive abortion laws.

    Telehealth medication abortions have accounted for an increasing share of total US abortions since last year’s Supreme Court ruling that established there is no constitutional right to abortion, CNN previously reported. Prior to the June 2022 ruling, medication abortions provided by virtual-only providers made up 4% of all abortions in April 2022 and 5% in May 2022, according to data from the Society of Family Planning. However, between June and December 2022, the share of such procedure grew from 6 to 11%. And as of 2020, more than half of US abortions were conducted using medication.

    Assemblymember Karines Reyes, a registered nurse who sponsored the bill, said Tuesday she was “proud to sponsor this critical piece of legislation to fully protect abortion providers using telemedicine.”

    Hochul previously signed legislation aimed at expanding reproductive rights. Last month, the governor signed a bill to ensure that every student at a State University of New York (SUNY) or City University of New York (CUNY) college will be able to access medication abortion, along with another bill that allows pharmacists across the state to dispense contraceptives over the counter.

    The governor’s recent moves demonstrate the changing abortion landscape nationwide. As Democratic-led states aim to expand access, states with Republican majorities have enacted widespread restrictions, including near-total bans.

    Last month, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature overrode a veto by its Democratic governor to ban most abortions after 12 weeks.

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  • Why Not Whitmer?

    Why Not Whitmer?

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    Why doesn’t Gretchen Whitmer just run for president? Or at least humor the suggestion?

    Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, sat cross-legged on the couch of a darkened TV studio in East Lansing, where a local PBS program called Off the Record is taped—a weird name for an interview show watched by 100,000 people.

    “I know!” agreed Whitmer, who wore a camouflage sweatshirt with Michigangster scripted across the front. We met here on a recent evening for an interview in which I would ask her—on the record—several variants of the above “running for president” question.

    No, of course she is not running for president, Whitmer told me. She 100 percent supports Joe Biden, who is great and vigorous and all of that—and not too old, definitely not too old. She just wants to help him win. Kamala Harris too. Love her!

    Clearly, though, Whitmer was happy to go through the Kabuki of being interrogated over whether she might change her mind. She didn’t bother with the annoyance that many ambitious pols feel compelled to feign—it’s such a hassle—when asked whether they might give the ol’ presidency a look. She giggled at many of my questions. Whitmer seems to genuinely enjoy being a politician, even the ridiculous and absurd parts of it, such as this.

    “So, you’re not running for president,” I said.

    “Correct,” she affirmed.

    “Why not?”

    “Because I just got reelected governor,” she replied, half-smirking. “And I made a commitment to the people of Michigan that I’m gonna fulfill it.” This has been Whitmer’s stock answer since she trounced the Republican Tudor Dixon by 11 points to win reelection last November.

    [Read: The case for a primary challenge to Joe Biden]

    Okay, sure. But a few days earlier, Whitmer had announced plans for a new political-action committee, the Fight Like Hell PAC, named for her oft-stated vow to preserve abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. The PAC will allow the governor to raise money for Democrats across the country ahead of 2024—just the kind of thing restless and term-limited statewide leaders do when they are trying to take themselves national.

    And surely Whitmer noticed that, in early June, Biden had taken an unfortunate plunge while onstage during the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation. He was fine, but the viral episode underscored how nerve-racking it can be to watch an octogenarian run for reelection. Presumably Whitmer had also seen that 67 percent of respondents to a recent CBS News poll said they don’t think Biden should seek another term, a figure that includes 75 percent of independents and 42 percent of Democrats.

    No shortage of Democratic colleagues, operatives, and donors has encouraged Whitmer to seek the presidency—and not necessarily to wait until her second term ends. She is one of the top Democrats on the “If Biden backs out” index, and has even been offered up—including by me—as someone who might consider primarying him. Polls show a bipartisan yearning to avoid a Biden-Trump rematch that is not exactly shaping up to be a rolling pageant of joy.

    I followed Whitmer on a series of high-energy events across Michigan last week. She visited a dance studio in Detroit and a sporting-goods store in Lansing, where she signed a bill—the Crown Act—that will make it illegal to discriminate against citizens based on their hair style. “For far too long, we’ve known that hair-based discrimination has been used to deny equal opportunity for Black men and women,” Whitmer said to applause from a heavily Black audience.

    She is deft at pivoting from specific issues to the broader theme of personal freedom, particularly relating to her signature cause, abortion access. “Michigan is a state where we stand up for fundamental rights,” she continued. “Whether it’s the right to make your own decisions about your health and your body, the freedom to feel safe in your community.” Her list also included the freedom to move around. “Fix the damn roads” was Whitmer’s slogan when she first ran for governor, in 2018. After considerable gridlock over how to fund the work, the state’s roads are now plugged with orange construction barrels. “Our new state flower,” she calls them.

    Whitmer’s governing course has been bumpy at times, especially in her first term, when she confronted Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature. To pay for the road repairs, she proposed a 45-cent-per-gallon gas-tax increase—a deeply unpopular idea that quickly crashed. Whitmer would eventually bypass the legislature and pay for the road repairs through several billion dollars in bonds approved by the State Transportation Commission.

    [Read: Why Biden shouldn’t run in 2024]

    A hyperlocal message like “Fix the damn roads” is good for a cheerleader governor but not always a vehicle that travels well. Whitmer is, for better or worse, extremely Michigan—possessed of one of the thickest native accents I’ve heard, a pronounced northern twang that evokes the Upper Peninsula more than Detroit. She’s lived in the state for all of her 51 years: childhood in Lansing and Grand Rapids, college and law school at Michigan State, stints in the state House and Senate, a vacation cottage up north. Her foul-mouthed irreverence, goofy humor, and ability to pound beers and disarm adversaries make her a formidable operator in Lansing.

    “You could drop Gretchen Whitmer anywhere, and she can connect immediately,” Mike Duggan, the longtime mayor of Detroit, told me. “You could be sitting here in Detroit, up in Marquette talking about mining. She listens intently. People feel, like, a bond with her.”

    Across the state, Whitmer is known affectionately as “Big Gretch.” It’s not clear where the moniker started, and Whitmer didn’t love it at first. “There aren’t many women who want ‘Big’ on the front of her nickname,” she told me. But she went with it, in keeping with the ethos of her favorite movie, The Big Lebowski. The governor has embraced the film’s walk-off line—“The Dude abides”—as a personal credo of acceptance and willingness to roll with imperfect circumstances.

    Whitmer achieved national prominence during the pandemic, and it was not all pleasant—including a kidnapping plot against her for which the FBI arrested a motley but heavily armed band of self-styled militia men. Her lockdown policies faced fierce and at times unruly opposition. She was also a target of President Donald Trump, who dismissed her as “that woman from Michigan.” Whitmer took pride in the brush-off, put the quote on a T-shirt, and wore it on TV. Biden’s campaign team vetted her as a possible running mate in 2020. Whitmer said at the time that she was happy in her “dream job,” which is what politicians tend to say while they’re contemplating another one.

    [Gretchen Whitmer: The plot to kidnap me]

    Whitmer has two daughters in college and lives in the governor’s mansion with her second husband, Marc Mallory, a dentist, and their two dogs, a labradoodle (Kevin) and Aussiedoodle (Doug). As a matter of personal bias, I told Whitmer I am supportive of people giving human names to their pets. Or maybe I was just trying to flatter her into answering the question about running for president—crack the door open just a little and spare us this recurrent parade of elderlies.

    Whitmer, obviously, took none of my bait. She kept laughing, though—abided, even. “You know, it’s funny; ‘The Dude abides’—it’s a really wise philosophy,” she observed during our brief detour into film study. “There are just things you can’t control.”

    I took this to mean that Whitmer is ruling nothing out and is willing to adapt to the unforeseen. I pointed out that Americans were starved for new national leaders. Whitmer did not dispute this. Nor have Democrats nominated a fresh face since Barack Obama—and he had to jump the line for that to happen, in 2008, when it was supposed to be Hillary Clinton’s turn. Is Whitmer willing to “fight like hell” to upset the entrenched political order, or is that just a slogan?

    I also mentioned that if the anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can poll as high as 20 percent in the Democratic primary field, then many Democratic voters are clearly open to—even desperate for—someone not named Biden on the ballot. Why not give them a serious alternative?

    [Read: Joe Biden isn’t popular. That might not matter in 2024.]

    “You know, there are a lot of really talented Democratic leaders all across the country,” Whitmer told me. She would be proud to be considered among them.

    What if Biden changes his mind?

    “He’s running!”

    “Okay, but you saw him fall the other day,” I said. “Did your thinking, in that split second before Biden got up, change at all?”

    “No!”

    Whitmer was still laughing at this point, but I might have been pushing things—approaching dark and disrespectful. I had a flight to catch in Detroit, and a long drive from Lansing, with construction to contend with. “We’ll keep talkin’. How’s that?” Whitmer said. “And one of these days, we’ll have a beer. Or three.”

    We left things there, and the Michigangster governor returned to her lane, for now.

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  • Abortion Is A Winning Issue For National Democrats. In These Southern States, It’s More Complicated.

    Abortion Is A Winning Issue For National Democrats. In These Southern States, It’s More Complicated.

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    Crimson MacDonald could die if she gets pregnant. The chair of Kentucky’s Campbell County Democratic Party suffered a ruptured uterus while delivering her second child in 2017, requiring emergency surgery and multiple blood transfusions to save her life.

    Six years later, and one year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion as it ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, MacDonald is taking extra care to avoid getting pregnant again. She doesn’t want to have to plead her case to the state’s medical bureaucracy that an unintended pregnancy would endanger her life and thus entitle her to a rare exception to Kentucky’s ban on abortion in all other cases.

    “It’s horrifying,” MacDonald said of the prospect of dealing with another pregnancy. “It’s absolutely horrifying.”

    The irony in all this is that MacDonald doesn’t even live in a through-and-through red state, where anti-abortion Republicans fully control the state’s government. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a self-described “pro-choice” Democrat, has held office since 2019 and is running for a second term this November. Beshear supports allowing elective abortions early in pregnancy and has pushed for adding exemptions from the ban for survivors of rape or incest, and in cases of fetal abnormalities.

    In the wake of the Dobbs decision in June 2022, Democrats across the country have embraced the fight for abortion rights as a kind of political kryptonite, capable of neutralizing Republicans in elections where the odds would otherwise be against President Joe Biden’s party. In November, Democrats outperformed expectations in the House and held on to the Senate, largely thanks to women voters who mobilized against abortion restrictions. In battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona, statewide candidates won their elections on promises to protect or reinstate abortion rights. And on Tuesday, the last anti-abortion Democrat in the Virginia state Senate lost to a pro-choice primary challenger.

    As the country moves closer to the 2024 election cycle, the issue is likely to be key for Democrats, who at the national level strongly support abortion rights. In Biden’s video launching his bid for reelection in April, he indicated reproductive choice would be a major issue for his campaign and criticized “MAGA extremists … dictating what health care decisions women can make.”

    But in some Southern states, the combination of a veto-proof Republican majority in state legislatures and a general lack of cultural and political motivation means that abortion rights are less straightforward for Democrats running for the states’ highest office. The electorate in those states is, at the very least, more hostile to abortion rights than in the country as a whole. And often in the South, as with gun rights, a candidate’s position on abortion becomes a proxy for whether they are in touch with local values. MacDonald said she just takes it as a given that the majority of her neighbors oppose abortion, aside from cases of rape and incest.

    “The reality is that most people in Kentucky are pro-life,” she said. A 2020 Pew survey found that only 36% of Kentuckians said abortion should be legal in “all/most cases,” compared with 61% of Americans nationwide.

    As a result, Democrats would just as soon focus on issues in which they have greater influence and are less likely to alienate persuadable voters with more conservative social views.

    “I don’t think any voter should realistically expect much from Beshear on the abortion issue,” said D. Stephen Voss, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky, who grew up in Louisiana. “There’s just very little the governor can do in this context.”

    Along with Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi also have competitive gubernatorial elections in November, with Democrats set to invest millions in efforts to hold the executive post in Kentucky and Louisiana and to capture it in Mississippi for the first time since 2000. In addition to Beshear, former Louisiana Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson is vying to succeed outgoing Louisiana Gov. Jon Bel Edwards (D), while Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley (D) is seeking to unseat scandal-plagued Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R).

    “For any candidate, not speaking directly and clearly about abortion is a losing strategy. This is especially true for Democratic candidates.”

    – Jessica Herrera, Supermajority

    It also sets up something of a test measuring how far the Democratic line on abortion rights may flex in areas that have trended conservative on reproductive rights but are simultaneously in the most dire need. All three states are also part of the nation’s post-Roe v. Wade abortion desert, a huge swath of the country in which multiple states have severely restricted abortion rights, meaning patients in need of care often must cross state lines multiple times to get to a state where they can access abortion.

    Beshear and Wilson, who are open about their desire to sign legislation protecting abortion in cases of rape and incest, are not exactly screaming it from the hilltops. The candidates do not evade questions about abortion when asked, but they are not planning to spend money informing voters about their views on the topic in TV advertisements and other paid communication. They instead prefer to talk about protecting Medicaid expansion and increasing funding for education and public safety.

    That is, of course, in cases where the Democratic candidates even support liberalizing abortion law. In Mississippi, where the complete ban includes a narrowly worded exception for rape survivors, Presley, who calls himself a “pro-life” Democrat, has declared he’s satisfied with current law.

    “For any of these candidates, likely they ought to campaign on abortion by proxy,” letting allied abortion rights groups pitch the candidates to pro-choice voters, Voss said. “Maybe to a degree using dog whistles rather than placing it so in the center of their campaigns.”

    To the extent that candidates like Beshear discuss abortion, keeping the focus on their opponents’ support for unpopular, no-exception bans is a safer bet than campaigning for a broader expansion of abortion rights, according to Voss.

    “Voters tend to have a sort of buyer’s remorse response to policy changes,” Voss said. “And right now we’re in a sort of backlash against pro-life policy victories.”

    Some abortion rights advocates, however, believe that Democrats who soft-pedal the issue are failing their state’s most vulnerable families and squandering a cause that has proved to be a political winner in unexpected places following the Dobbs decision’s reversal of Roe.

    “For any candidate, not speaking directly and clearly about abortion is a losing strategy. This is especially true for Democratic candidates,” said Jessica Herrera, an Arizona-based spokesperson for Supermajority, a group that leverages women voters to advocate for abortion rights and other policy priorities. “Voters are unwavering in their support for abortion access.”

    Supporters of abortion rights in Kentucky call for a no vote on a constitutional amendment explicitly prohibiting abortion. The amendment failed at the ballot in November.

    STEFANI REYNOLDS/Getty Images

    The Kansas-Kentucky Consensus

    When more than two-thirds of Kansas voters rejected an anti-abortion constitutional amendment in August, it was widely seen as a sign that Republicans had overestimated the popularity of their anti-abortion policies ― even in more conservative states.

    In Kentucky, voters defeated a similar constitutional amendment in November. Abortion rights proponents won in both places by emphasizing the need to protect personal freedom from government overreach ― a theme that appeals to Democratic base voters as well as to a chunk of independents and Republicans. In Kentucky, the coalition Protect Kentucky Access, ran TV ads painting the amendment as another case of “politicians” trying to impose “mandates” that interfere with personal choices.

    “While we as observers tend to assume in a red state that it leans one way or another, I think it is much more complicated than that,” said Ashley All, a senior adviser to Families United for Freedom, an abortion rights referendum group that played a key role in the Kansas and Kentucky referendums.

    “The vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum oppose government interference in a private medical decision,” All added. “They oppose extreme bans on abortion, especially bans that do not have exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.”

    But even Kentucky voters’ rejection of the anti-abortion constitutional amendment illustrated the inertia and pressure abortion rights proponents in the state were fighting against. Voters in Kentucky were already living under much stricter abortion restrictions than voters in Kansas, and they defeated the anti-abortion amendment by less than 5 percentage points, a much narrower vote than the 18-point margin in Kansas.

    “He has a strategy just as we have our strategy.”

    – Tamarra Wieder, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates

    “Kentucky voters, like voters in most states, fall somewhere between the Democratic position and the Republican position on abortion,” Voss said. “They typically support more restrictions than Democratic politicians do, but they’re bothered by the draconian limitations that Republicans support with the encouragement of pro-life activist groups.”

    In 2019, then-Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) signed a suite of anti-abortion laws, including a “trigger” law that would ban abortion in the event that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The prohibition, which first took effect in June 2022 after the Dobbs decision, bars abortion at any time in a pregnancy, with the sole exception being cases in which the pregnant person’s life is in danger.

    Beshear, who identifies as “pro-choice” but supports unspecified “reasonable restrictions” on abortions later in a pregnancy, unseated Bevin in 2019 with the backing of abortion rights groups. Throughout his tenure, Beshear has sought to contrast himself with Republicans by fighting them on the grounds where they are most vulnerable: their opposition to rape and incest exceptions.

    In seeking a second term, Beshear mainly talks about abortion rights as a point of contrast with his Republican opponent, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Cameron not only supports the no-exception trigger law, but as the state’s top attorney, he has defended it in court.

    Kentucky’s abortion ban “expressed the view of the commonwealth as it related to how we’re going to protect life,” Cameron said at a news conference in November. “I continue to stand in support of that law and will continue to stand up for life.”

    Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), left, talks to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) in 2019. Cameron, a defender of the state's abortion ban, is seeking to unseat Beshear.
    Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), left, talks to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) in 2019. Cameron, a defender of the state’s abortion ban, is seeking to unseat Beshear.

    Bruce Schreiner/Associated Press

    Cameron has touted his work defending the state’s abortion ban in at least one direct-mail item, as well as a TV ad, where he cites it as one among many examples of him taking on Beshear and Biden.

    Beshear’s campaign notes that before the trigger ban took effect, the youngest known abortion patients in Kentucky were 9 years old. Two such girls underwent the procedure in 2021 and 2022, according to official data published by the Louisville Courier Journal.

    “Daniel Cameron believes that a nine-year-old rape victim who becomes pregnant should be forced to carry the pregnancy to term and give birth,” Alex Floyd, a spokesperson for Beshear’s reelection campaign, said in a statement. “He supports an extreme ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. Kentuckians rejected this extremism at the ballot box last November and they will again in this election.”

    Some abortion rights advocates are cutting Beshear slack for not making abortion rights a more central part of his campaign.

    “He has a strategy, just as we have our strategy,” said Tamarra Wieder, Kentucky state director of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, the reproductive health provider’s political and legislative arm, which has not yet endorsed in the gubernatorial race. “Of course, as someone working in reproductive rights, I would love for him to lean in. I know that it’s a winning issue.”

    For MacDonald, the prospect of Cameron winning ― and either using his office to make medical exemptions harder to obtain or obstructing hypothetical progress on legislation creating exceptions for survivors of rape and incest ― is motivation enough to vote for Beshear.

    “It can be worse,” she said. “And Daniel Cameron is exactly the pathway for that to happen.”

    Former Louisiana Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson (D), left, is seeking to succeed Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), right. He has struck a more liberal tone than Edwards on abortion.
    Former Louisiana Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson (D), left, is seeking to succeed Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), right. He has struck a more liberal tone than Edwards on abortion.

    Melinda Deslatte/Associated Press

    The ‘Pro-Life’ Democrats

    Louisiana and Mississippi have abortion bans that are nearly identical to Kentucky’s, though Mississippi also allows the procedure in cases where a survivor of rape reports the crime to law enforcement. Even those Democratic candidates who are willing to stand behind the label of “pro-life,” though, seem to be trying to thread the needle.

    Outgoing Louisiana Gov. Jon Bel Edwards, who identifies as a “pro-life” Democrat, signed the state’s near-total abortion ban in June 2022. Edwards, who is prohibited by term limits from running in 2024, said at the time that he objected to the law’s lack of exceptions for rape and incest but argued that vetoing it would allow Republicans to pass an even stricter law over his objections.

    Shawn Wilson, a Democrat who served as Louisiana’s secretary of transportation and development under both Edwards and Edwards’ Republican predecessor, is using a decidedly different tone from Edwards when discussing abortion rights as he runs for the governorship.

    In a statement, Wilson said that he is personally “pro-life.” But without adopting the term “pro-choice,” Wilson also said that “bureaucrats should not be overriding private and difficult decisions best made by women, families and their doctors.”

    “At the same time, I believe there should be common-sense limitations that bring us closer to Louisiana’s laws before the trigger ban laws took effect after the Dobbs decision,” he said, referencing Louisiana’s pre-Dobbs prohibition on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

    But in an effort to reach a “compromise,” Wilson said that as governor, he would prioritize “clarifying existing laws and including exceptions for rape and incest, fetal abnormalities, medical complications and related issues.”

    Wilson is nonetheless unlikely to discuss his abortion stance in advertising or other paid communications, according to his campaign. He is instead focusing primarily on defending the state’s Medicaid expansion and continuing to adequately fund schools and law enforcement.

    “There’s a price of admission you have to clear with voters to show that you share their core values – that you are something other than a paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter national Democrat.”

    – Zac McCrary, Democratic pollster

    Presley in Mississippi is the most anti-abortion of the three states’ Democratic gubernatorial candidates. He identifies as “pro-life,” which he has been advertising to voters since at least 2007, when he first ran for the state’s public service commission, a body that regulates utility companies. That’s also the year that Mississippi’s “trigger” law banning abortion was passed, although it was barred from taking effect until the Dobbs decision.

    While Presley says he supports Mississippi’s existing abortion ban, which does not have an exception for incest, he emphasizes that he personally supports exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the person who is pregnant.

    Presley is most in his element, however, challenging self-described “pro-life” Republicans who oppose Medicaid expansion and other programs that support children once they are born. He is running against Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, whose approval rating has sunk amid the uproar over a scandal involving the diversion of poverty relief funds to sports facilities during the tenure of his predecessor, Phil Bryant. (Reeves was lieutenant governor at the time.)

    “Being pro-life is not only about protecting the unborn, and I’m for that,” Presley said in a speech last July. “But it’s also caring about the ones that are born, that are here, that are suffering in a rural community today in the grips of addiction.”

    Asked for a statement about his abortion views and the role they would play in the race, Presley’s campaign provided a statement entirely about Reeves’ welfare funding scandal and his “failed record on health care.”

    Zac McCrary, who is doing both Presley’s and Wilson’s polling, described the “pro-life” label as one way ― albeit not the only way ― of distinguishing oneself from national Democrats and creating a permission structure for voters with conservative social views to consider a candidate they might otherwise preclude.

    “There’s a price of admission you have to clear with voters to show that you share their core values – that you are something other than a paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter national Democrat,” said McCrary, who grew up in Alabama.

    Democrat Brandon Presley meets with supporters in Grenada, Mississippi, in April. Presley has said he would not seek to change Mississippi's abortion ban.
    Democrat Brandon Presley meets with supporters in Grenada, Mississippi, in April. Presley has said he would not seek to change Mississippi’s abortion ban.

    Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

    A large plurality (48%) of Mississippians believe that the “state has the right to some restrictions on abortion,” compared with 18% who think it should always be illegal and 31% who think it should always be legal, according to a June-July 2022 poll conducted by the ACLU of Mississippi.

    Supermajority’s Herrera encouraged Presley to take a page out of Wilson’s book ― and proactively advocate for expanding abortion access.

    “Mississippi is where the Dobbs case originated,” she said, noting that Mississippi’s attorney general brought the lawsuit that led to a federal right being taken away. “I think that is not lost on voters.”

    The question for voters in Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky who support abortion rights is why they should even cast a ballot if liberalizing abortion laws is such a remote possibility. But advocates say that something is better than nothing. “In states where there may be limited options to expand access at this point, we have to look at other ways to support and help women,” said All from Families United for Freedom.

    In some cases, supporting other kinds of health care access is the most practical solution. For example, in Mississippi, expanding Medicaid would at least give low-income pregnant people, who are barred from getting abortions, the chance to get the pregnancy-related medical care that they need.

    Wieder, the leader of Kentucky’s branch of the Planned Parenthood Allied Advocates, is putting her faith in the courts to force modest changes in the state’s abortion ban.

    “We have incredibly brilliant legal minds working on this right now,” Wieder said. “And I know that we will find a way to bring back some modicum of access.”

    “This is a long game. The more wins we get, [the more] we will be able to turn the tide.”

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  • Iowa High Court Refuses To Unblock Strict Ban On Most Abortions

    Iowa High Court Refuses To Unblock Strict Ban On Most Abortions

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    DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s high court refused Friday to unblock a strict ban on most abortions, rebuffing Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and, for now, keeping the conservative state from joining others that have severely limited access to the procedure.

    The decision to uphold a 2019 district court ruling that blocked the law comes roughly a year after the same body — and the U.S. Supreme Court — determined that women do not have a fundamental constitutional right to abortion.

    The blocked law bans abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant.

    While the state’s high court maintains the block on the law, it does not preclude Reynolds and lawmakers from passing a new law that looks the same. The decision Friday was largely procedural — the 2022 appeal to the 2019 ruling was too late.

    Abortions remain legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

    Most Republican-led states have severely curtailed access to abortion in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court stripped women’s constitutional right to abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade and handing authority over the issue to states.

    Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds delivers her inaugural address, Jan. 13, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa.

    AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File

    Reynolds signed the 2018 law despite state and federal court decisions at the time, including Roe, affirming a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Planned Parenthood sued and a state judge blocked the law the following year. Reynolds did not appeal the decision at the time.

    In a separate case, the Iowa Supreme Court decided last year to reverse an opinion saying the state’s constitution affirms a fundamental right to abortion. Roe was overturned a week later and Reynolds sought to dissolve the 2019 decision.

    A state judge ruled last year that she had no authority to do so and Reynolds appealed to the state’s Supreme Court, which is now far more conservative than when the law was first passed. Reynolds appointed five of the court’s seven members.

    Although called a “fetal heartbeat” law, the measure does not easily translate to medical science. At the point where advanced technology can detect the first visual flutter, the embryo isn’t yet a fetus and does not have a heart. An embryo is termed a fetus eight weeks after fertilization.

    The Iowa law contains exceptions for medical emergencies, including threats to the mother’s life, rape, incest and fetal abnormality.

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  • ‘Pretending to live a civilian life’: How pro-Ukrainian residents of occupied Melitopol feel daily fear | CNN

    ‘Pretending to live a civilian life’: How pro-Ukrainian residents of occupied Melitopol feel daily fear | CNN

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    Kyiv
    CNN
     — 

    Editor’s note: The southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol has long been known for its sweet delights. The name “Melitopol” means “the Honey City” in Ukrainian and the city’s official logo features a cherry, a nod to the deep red fruit the region is famous for.

    But life in Melitopol is anything but sweet. The city was captured by Russian troops shortly after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Pro-Ukrainian partisans have remained active in the city, orchestrating several attacks against the pro-Russian administration installed in the place of its elected leaders. The Zaporizhzhia region in which the city lies is partially occupied by Russia and was illegally annexed last September.

    Below is the account of a Melitopol resident in her early 30s who has refused to flee the city and is living under Russian occupation. CNN is not naming her because of concerns for her safety. Her testimony was translated from Ukrainian and edited for brevity. 

    There is terror in Melitopol. But it’s quiet, you don’t see it in the streets.

    For partisans, the situation here is terrible. For those of us who rejected Russian passports and are now known as “the unreliable,” the situation is terrible. But if you go to the market, you wouldn’t think that anything is going on.

    The Russians are trying to force everyone here to get Russian passports. It’s easier to manipulate people when they have Russian citizenship. Not getting the passports makes our life very difficult. They are refusing to give us access to hospitals and so on. We are a family of farmers and we are losing our land because we don’t have any Russian documents.

    I’m afraid I will eventually have to get it. But we are delaying this moment. One relative went to the office and the queues were huge because everyone was intimidated into getting a passport. The process has sped up. Previously, you had to wait a month or two, but now they can print a passport in a week.

    Everyone was given cash welfare payments until February, but starting in March, only people with Russian passports get them. That’s why many pensioners started getting passports now because there was no need for it before. Disabled people, people on low incomes, and those who wanted to use free healthcare took the passports immediately after the Russians started offering them, because they didn’t want to lose the benefits.

    All in all, a large percentage of the population already has Russian passports. If you don’t, you’re a black sheep, and you can be subject to a frisking.

    Here in Melitopol, searches are usually conducted after shelling and after guerrilla attacks on pro-Russian collaborators. My grandmother’s house was searched because a Russian soldier deserted when he was in the village. They searched the houses in the village, trying to find him.

    The people who remained in Melitopol can be divided into several categories. There are those who are basically satisfied with the current pro-Russian government. There are those who don’t care and who would support whoever gives them more money in cash payments.  

    Those who stayed mostly support the pro-Russian government. They are convinced that it is here to stay.  

    Obviously, there are also Ukrainian patriots, those of us waiting for Ukraine to win this war. We whisper to each other in the market. You can tell that someone is supporting Ukraine at the market when you ask for high quality produce. Vendors start cursing Russia because they now have to choose between selling bad products and worse products.

    There are still a lot of partisans, God bless them, but we are in the minority. Most of the Ukrainian patriots have left, especially those who actively participated in rallies, because there was a direct threat to their lives.

    Our neighbor turned us in for supporting Ukraine, but we are not being touched, at least not yet. My neighbor works for the new government and she knows that we actively opposed Russia during the first phase of the war.

    I think we will be issued some kind of document that they give to “the unreliable” which says we have refused the passports. This means nothing except showing that we refused to take Russian passports. It’s a temporary certificate of non-citizens, but you either take this piece of paper or you have to leave Melitopol. So, we are going to take it.

    Until April, it was possible to move freely throughout the occupied zone without documents. Now you need a Russian passport or the non-citizen document, but they keep issuing warnings and saying that you need to get a Russian passport by June or you will not be allowed to leave.

    People here are encouraged to send their children to summer camps in Crimea, like they were last year. Some parents on our street voluntarily sent their children to Crimea for a month and the children came back. But our neighbors, who have since left for Germany, did not want to send their son to a Russian school or to a camp, and it was okay. Their son stayed at home all year, studying online at a Ukrainian school. Children are not taken away by force here. You have to understand that parents send them there voluntarily.

    In this file photo, Russian passports are being issued to residents in the occupied city of Melitopol.

    It’s true that the occupiers are worried about the counteroffensive. The mood in the city has changed dramatically over the past month, from “Melitopol is forever with Russia” to thinking where and how they will build defense lines.

    Of course, this is just what the ordinary soldiers in the city are saying, but there is no longer that victorious mood. I feel that something is going to happen here soon. Ukrainian hryvnias are being bought up in the market, and farmers are refusing to sell their products, because they are waiting to give it to Ukraine. And all the neighbors who are in favor of Russia have stopped communicating with us, because they are no longer sure that Russia will stay here forever and are afraid to talk.

    There are more or less no problems with getting food. There is no variety, but there are no shortages either. The standards and packaging have completely changed since the invasion started. Butter that is made at the same factory tastes so bad now that we don’t know what to do to mask the taste.

    Everything that is imported from Russia contains palm oil. That’s not an exaggeration, the ingredient list of a candy lists palm oil three times. It’s in everything. Sausages, cheese, candy, cookies, butter.

    But the biggest problem is with medicines and household goods, as well as baby food. Russia doesn’t have good quality medicines and there is no choice. You go to a pharmacy and they give you one option, take it or leave it. People inquire about medicines for 10 minutes and in the end, they only have iodine. A woman in front of me was trying to buy Nestlé baby food, but the price was out of this world. She ended up buying some Russian-made equivalent.

    My mother and grandmother have diabetes. The Russian medicines have the same active ingredient but they affect them in completely different ways. They have different dosages and excipients and my mother and grandmother started feeling much worse when they began taking them. We received some Ukrainian medicines from Ukraine through Crimea, enough for a month and a half.

    The cynicism of doctors and pharmacists here is overwhelming. No one says anything directly. We call the war a “situation” here. So, they just answer: “Well, this is the situation, if you need it, go to Ukraine or Europe.” When I told the doctor that I needed specific medication, I was told to go to the city of Zaporizhzhia to buy it. And just so you understand, to go to Zaporizhzhia, you have to go via Moscow. That’s the only way.

    A Russian flag flies in the occupied city of Melitopol on October 13, 2022.

    In Russia, they don’t have the same standards and regulations for products. Nothing like that. Russian soaps, shampoos, and toothpastes are of terrible quality. Belarusian ones are a little better, and the best option for us here is Turkish shampoo. There are a lot of Chinese and Turkish products on the market. Russian and Chinese products are of the worst quality, while Belarusian and Turkish products are more or less okay, but more expensive.

    The problem is that only the military here have a lot of money, and often they buy everything decent. The rumours that Russians themselves do not want to buy Russian products are true. Until September, Ukrainian products were smuggled to Melitopol and the Russian military bought everything themselves. Soldiers stood in line in front of me and asked for Ukrainian socks and soap. Now there are no Ukrainian goods anymore.

    Everyone is pretending to live a civilian life. There’s no talk of evacuation. People are used to the explosions and to the fact that from time to time there are burnt-out cars of pro-Russian collaborators on the main street. People are used to the fact that Russian troops and authorities can come to your house and kick you out.

    People have gotten used to everything over the year.

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  • Tuberville Draws Fire For Holding Hundreds Of Military Promotions ‘Hostage’ Over Abortion

    Tuberville Draws Fire For Holding Hundreds Of Military Promotions ‘Hostage’ Over Abortion

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    Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) sharply criticized her colleague Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) on Sunday for his continual blockade of military nominations, saying the Alabama Republican is “holding the entire nation’s national security hostage.”

    Tuberville has for months refused to support about 200 promotions for military officers over a Pentagon policy that provides travel reimbursements and leave for service members to seek abortions out-of-state, which was updated after the Supreme Court voted to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade.

    The GOP senator has called on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind the effort, pledging to stand in the way of the usual unanimous consent process to approve military promotions to the ire of his colleagues. Tuberville also said he would allow the promotions to advance if Democrats hold a vote on legislation that would end the Pentagon policy, even if it was largely guaranteed the bill would fail, but the party has refused to do so.

    Duckworth told MSNBC on Sunday that Tuberville was risking the safety of the nation “for his own personal social agenda.”

    “There’s a process that can change that policy,” Duckworth, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on the network’s “The Sunday Show,” pointing to the National Defense Authorization Act, which is set by Congress each year. “But instead he’s holding out the promotions of hundreds of generals hostage and these are people who are going to be you know, the general in charge of all logistics for the army … He’s really putting our national security at risk for his personal social agenda.”

    Tuberville has argued that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) could bring nominations to the chamber floor individually, but doing so would require votes for each nominee rather than a traditional unanimous consent measure.

    His actions have frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Austin also wrote to lawmakers earlier this month, saying Tuberville’s actions posed a “clear risk to U.S. military readiness,” adding that no single senator had every held up so many officers in the past. He said the hold could impact up to 650 officers that will require Senate confirmation by the end of the year, according to The Associated Press.

    “Not approving the recommendation for promotions actually creates a ripple effect through the force that makes us far less ready than we need to be,” Austin told lawmakers in March.

    Tuberville has defended his efforts in recent weeks, accusing the Pentagon of providing “taxpayer-funded abortions” against federal law and vowing to stand in the way until the Pentagon shifts tack. In a tweet on Sunday, he once again stood by his actions.

    “No matter how much misinformation Democrats spread, I will continue to stand up to the most politicized Pentagon in American history,” he wrote.

    The Pentagon announced its updated policies in February, saying it would pay for service members to travel out-of-state for abortion care and provide up to three weeks of administrative leave. Austin has defended the policy, saying thousands of women in the military are required to live in areas that have limitations on reproductive health care.

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  • 3 Judges Who Chipped Away Abortion Rights To Hear Federal Abortion Pill Appeal

    3 Judges Who Chipped Away Abortion Rights To Hear Federal Abortion Pill Appeal

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    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Three conservative appeals court judges, each with a history of supporting restrictions on abortion, will hear arguments May 17 on whether a widely used abortion drug should remain available.

    The case involves a regulatory issue — whether the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, and subsequent actions making it easier to obtain, must be rolled back. The appellate hearing follows an April ruling by a federal judge in Texas, who ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. His ruling was stayed pending appeal. The case was allotted to a panel made up of Jennifer Walker Elrod, James Ho and Cory Wilson.

    The three judges of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals won’t rule immediately. Their decision, whatever it is, is also unlikely to have an immediate effect pending an expected appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Here’s a look at who the judges are and their track records.

    Jennifer Walker Elrod

    Nominated to the court in 2007 by Republican President George W. Bush, Elrod was among several 5th Circuit judges allowing Texas to temporarily ban abortions as the coronavirus pandemic took hold in early 2020.

    Elrod also was co-author of the opinion when the full 5th Circuit upheld in 2021 a Texas law outlawing an abortion method commonly used to end second-trimester pregnancies.

    That same year, she wrote for a panel that refused to order Louisiana to issue a long-stalled license for a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in New Orleans, saying “there is no free-standing federal right to receive an abortion-clinic license.”

    In the Texas case involving pandemic restrictions, she was part of a panel allowing what amounted to a ban on abortions — including medication abortions — by classifying them as non-essential procedures legally postponed under an order by Gov. Greg Abbott. The 2020 order was in effect for about a month.

    Elrod was in favor of decisions upholding Texas and Louisiana laws requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals — a move abortion rights advocates said would force some clinics to close.

    When the full court narrowly refused to let Louisiana officials cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood facilities in the state, Elrod wrote the dissent.

    Elrod also boasts a high profile in 5th Circuit decisions on regulatory issues. One, if upheld by the Supreme Court, could limit the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission to impose hefty fees and fines. Another, eventually struck by the Supreme Court, held that the “individual mandate” in former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law had been rendered unconstitutional by congressional action.

    James Ho

    A former Texas solicitor general, Ho is the first Asian-American to serve on the 5th Circuit and is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was nominated to the 5th Circuit in 2017 by Republican President Donald Trump. His opposition to abortion and abortion rights was clear early in his tenure, including referring to abortion as a “moral tragedy” in one 2018 opinion.

    In 2019, he wrote a 15-page grudging concurrence in a ruling that said a Mississippi abortion ban had to be struck down under then-existing court precedent. “Nothing in the text or original understanding of the Constitution establishes a right to an abortion,” he wrote.

    He went on to cite “the racial history of abortion advocacy as a tool of the eugenics movement.” He harshly criticized a lower court for declining to consider arguments that a fetus can feel pain, and for displaying “an alarming disrespect for the millions of Americans who believe … that abortion is the immoral, tragic, and violent taking of innocent human life.”

    That opinion was written in the case the Supreme Court ultimately used to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    Cory Wilson

    Nominated to the federal appeals court in 2020 by Trump, Wilson is a former Mississippi appeals court judge who had a strong anti-abortion record when he served in the Mississippi House from January 2016 to February 2019 as a Republican. Abortion rights supporters opposed his confirmation to the federal appeals court. They noted he had expressed support for “complete and immediate reversal” of the Roe v. Wade decision in a questionnaire from Mississippi Right to Life’s political action committee.

    Wilson voted for anti-abortion measures in 2016, including one to stop Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood facilities in the state — a measure rejected in court. In 2018 he voted for the Mississippi law that ultimately led to the demise of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The law prohibited most abortions after 15 weeks.

    At the 5th Circuit, Wilson joined Elrod, Ho and a majority of the full court in 2021 in upholding a Texas law outlawing an abortion method commonly used to end second-trimester pregnancies. He had voted for a similar law in the Mississippi Legislature.

    Associated Press reporter Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.

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  • North Carolina Democratic governor vetoes abortion ban, setting up likely override vote | CNN Politics

    North Carolina Democratic governor vetoes abortion ban, setting up likely override vote | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a controversial bill that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks, setting up a likely override effort from the state legislature, where Republicans have a supermajority.

    Cooper’s swift veto comes just over a week after the Republican-controlled state Senate advanced the bill to his desk in a party-line vote.

    Speaking to a crowd of supporters at a rally in Raleigh before his veto, Cooper urged those gathered to put pressure on four state Republican lawmakers who had previously vowed to protect abortion rights to stand by their comments and not join any veto override.

    “We are going to have to kick it into an even higher gear when that veto stamp comes down. If just one Republican in either the House or the Senate keeps a campaign promise to protect women’s reproductive health we can stop this ban,” Cooper said at the Saturday rally. “But that’s going to take every single one of you to make calls, to send emails, to write letters. Tell them to sustain this veto. Tell them to ask the Republican leadership to stop it.”

    This is a breaking story and will be updated.

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