Former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump kicked off 2023 by explaining why Republicans won fewer seats than expected in the November midterm elections. As Leah pointed out yesterday, Trump began his “Truth” social message with “it’s not my fault” and then proceeded to blame pro-life voters and Supreme Court justices Dobbs annulment of the decision Roe v. Wade. Here the post itselffollowed by the comment:
After ignoring my question yesterday about whether he would support a nationwide abortion ban, Trump today claims that Republicans have mishandled the “abortion issue” and is railing against supporters of the “No Exceptions” movement: pic.twitter.com/uybQmjwDG9
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) January 1, 2023
The post sparked a major backlash among many pro-life leaders. Ben Domenech – neither a “never Trumper” nor a moderate – he broke into this settingmarveling that “it’s hard to express how much is false,” Trump said:
Second, Trump claims that the pro-life stance has turned gigantic numbers of voters against Republicans. However, all of the most pro-life R incumbents won! DeSantis, Kemp, Abbott, DeWine, go down the list. All of the winning Senate candidates were also pro-life. Oops!
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) January 1, 2023
Fourth, “Mitch’s stupid $” is probably the reason JD Vance won and if Trump had spent even some of his money in Arizona, Blake and Lake could have won too. Not great!
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) January 1, 2023
Finally, consider how stupid it was that Trump veered left on the pro-life issue. This is the biggest victory of his presidency. Tremendous goodwill from pro-lifers. And what does he do? Call them quislings and say they are too radical! Very stupid.
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) January 1, 2023
I’m completely inclined to agree that the “abortion issue” has hurt Republicans in some races across the country. this likely motivated different voting blocs to choose a cycle that may have historically been weaker for the unpopular party in power, and some independents may have chosen not to vote red for the same reason. A deep dive into a number of House and statewide races would likely show a reversal Roe it had at least some influence. I’m also willing to admit that Republicans need to be smarter, more strategic, and more disciplined in responding to the Democrats’ repeated attacks on this issue by the pro-abortion media. Part of this is not adopting maximalist attitudes that turn off gigantic swaths of voters (as Domenech points out, Republicans have not adopted the extreme positions that Trump ascribes to them) and parrying faulty criticism into exact counterattacks on the Democratic Party’s obscene abortion radicalism.
In low, I am not arguing that abortion hasn’t had a detrimental effect on some GOP campaigns or that the broader party has effectively engaged in this debate. However, for the reasons mentioned above, I think it is clear that Trump is exploiting and amplifying the inactive media/progressive trope in his blame analysis, in a half-baked attempt to distract from his own undeniable and quantifiable blame for his party’s poor performance. The re-elected Republican governors that Domenech mentioned were not just nominally pro-life; each signed significant restrictions on abortion afterDobbstaking constant fire from Democrats and their journalistic comrades. Ron DeSantis achieved the most impressive victory margin in contemporary Florida history after signing a popular bill banning most abortions after 15 weeks (he has shown he is willing to go further in the upcoming legislative session). Brian Kemp, Greg Abbott and Mike DeWine signed “heartbeat” bills restricting most abortions after six weeks in Georgia, Texas and Ohio, respectively. Kemp won re-election by eight points, a significant improvement over his slim margin in 2018. Abbott defeated a high-profile and heavily financed opponent by 11 points. DeWine’s 26-point victory was a full 22 percentage points better than his 2018 lead.
The examples don’t end there. In Oklahoma, Democrats were hopeful about the vulnerability of Gov. Kevin Stitt, who signed a bill almost completely banning abortion (with very few exceptions). Six out of seven final public surveys in the race, from September to October, Stitt was either losing or leading by low single digits. He won by nearly 14 points. In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the six-week “heartbeat” bill. in 2018 and urges the courts to overturn the court ruling overturning them and that’s it Dobbs is the law of the land. A few months after the bill was signed into law, Reynolds won her race by three points. Four years later, sizzling on the heels Dobbs controversy, she won re-election by 18 points. Another pro-life governor, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, did so he fought aggressively on this matter in her condition. Four years ago, she won the relative tibia, winning by just over three points. In 2022, in the face of a nationwide battle over abortion, she increased her lead to 27 points. Nationally, House Republicans – representing the pro-life party – won the combined “popular” vote by a landslide, defeating the Democratic candidate’s combined advantage in the House by over three million votes.
This is not to say that all of these election results prove that Republicans’ differing views on abortion and legislative efforts are clear winners in the realm of public opinion or that they were a key factor in the aforementioned election victories. What I mean is that in the first national elections after the collapse Roeevery incumbent GOP governor and senator won, as did almost every incumbent GOP House governor and senator. Many of these candidates did not shy away from this issue at all. They won, often resoundingly, even in several races where the Democratic approach included flogging abortion as a primary messaging strategy. Most pro-lifers would happily trade choices losses (and certainly not spectacular electoral victories) for the long-awaited and lawful reversal Roe. But the evidence suggests that Trump was a much more damaging factor than abortion when assessing the party’s poor performance in 2022:
According to an analysis of the results by chamber district, Trump appears to be a significant reason for this result. His preferred candidates underperformed last week, helping Democrats hold the Senate and keep the race for control of the House close. Overall, his preferred primary candidates underperformed other GOP candidates by about five percentage points…A five-point penalty is a large number in today’s polarized era…The analysis relies on an unusual metric: the Cook Political Report’s main scoreboard. In Cook’s report, every Republican primary he entered was deemed a victory for either the “traditional” wing of the Republican Party or the “MAGA” wing. Based on the final results, we can assess how well the MAGA candidates performed compared to other Republicans. The five-point penalty affects how the district votes in 2020 and whether the district was an open seat or held by a Democratic or Republican incumbent. Here’s another way to think about it: Non-MAGA Republicans scored six points higher in 2022 than Trump did in 2020; MAGA Republicans didn’t do any better than him.
Trump can’t bear the thought that many conservative voters might be ready to defect from him, and he knows the 2022 midterm results could pose a political problem for him. So he points fingers at everything and everyone else, including the die-hard pro-lifers and “dumb Mitch dollars” who have been deployed A lot more generously support for Trump-backed Senate candidates than Trump’s political war chest. I’ll leave you with Judge Elena Kagan, one of the Dobbs dissidents, inadvertently making arguments against Roe: :
She’s mad at Dobbs… but that’s a perfect anti-Roe quote. https://t.co/BLO2QAukf4 pic.twitter.com/E4ju4EyZYT
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) January 1, 2023
