The GOP' 'suicide mission' on abortion
B-i-g trouble
Voters sent a now-familiar message to Republicans on Tuesday night: We do NOT like your abortion position. At all.
Familiar because it’s the same message they sent a year earlier — in the 2022 midterm elections!
“I don’t think it’s a big secret, but in many states abortion is not a winning issue for Republicans,” said retiring Utah Sen. Mitt Romney following Tuesday’s election.
That much is indisputable.
A harder question to answer is what Republicans should do about it. As in, from a political messaging perspective, how can GOP candidates talk about the post-Dobbs landscape? Or should they avoid talking about it at all? (At the 3rd GOP debate on Wednesday night, none of the 5 candidates on stage was at all interested in having an extended conversation on abortion.)
When I have questions I can’t answer about the Republican party, I turn to Mike Murphy, a longtime party strategist who is, to my mind, one of the smartest and creative minds in the business. (Murphy is, it’s worth noting, a vocal never Trumper.)
A decade ago, Mike and I had a conversation about the state of the Republican party. He explained it as a battle between mathematicians and priests. It remains, to my mind, the best way metaphor to understand not just that moment in American politics but where we were headed over the next 10 years. (You can read the whole thing here.)
So, naturally, when I was looking for someone to help me understand what — if anything — Republican candidates (and party strategists) could do to avoid a repeat of 2023 in 2024, I reached out to Mike.
Our conversation — conducted via email and lightly edited for flow — is below. I hope you enjoy it. (And make sure to check out Mike’s great podcast “Hacks on Tap.”)
Cillizza: Tuesday, again, revealed that Republicans are on the wrong end of the political stick on abortion. Does the reaction in the electorate to the Dobbs ruling surprise you or not?
Murphy: Not at all. The GOP has been on a suicide mission on abortion politics since Dobbs. It keeps costing us elections but the party, at least nationally, won’t change strategy because of the way GOP internal politics work. Madness, and we are paying a huge, dumb political price for it.
Among the presidential contenders, only Nikki Haley seems to understand the peril and is acting upon it. Trump, who I think is actually pro-choice, understands too but fears the price in the Iowa caucuses and other places for moving off the current Hari-Kari plan on abortion.
If he wins the nomination, I think he’ll try to pivot to center a bit. Will be an uphill fight.
Cillizza: Abortion has long been an animating impulse for the Republican base. And for many it still is. How do you deal with that given that it’s also clearly a political problem for lots of swing voters?
Murphy: The party is embracing the primary status quo in deep red places at the expense of winning elections in purple areas. It is a losing formula for gaining political power, but most of the GOP leadership at the federal level are from deep red districts and cannot, or will not, see beyond their own districts and echo chambers. The result is the left gains power at the macro level. It’s strategically stupid, but then again, we have become the stupid party.
Cillizza: Is the issue how Republicans talk about abortion or that they talk about it all? Would the party be better served to never mention the issue again for the next year?
Murphy: You cannot control that. When you pick abortion fights, as the party has with Dobbs, [you] push them to the top of the agenda and you cannot hide. The only tactic you have is to call for a better tone and sound notes of thoughtfulness and inclusion, like Nikki is trying to do.
But then the rest of the party leadership wants to act like the Elders in Footloose, you have a huge communications problem.
This week’s election was a great example. Normally, Joe Biden’s bad numbers on economic issues would have really helped Republicans but instead the GOP created a bad issue, injected it into the debate in several states and blew its metaphorical fingers off.
Electing a new Speaker who waves a Bible around and proclaims himself a bit of a Christian Ayatollah doesn’t help much either. It’s all brand suicide in the suburbs and other key battlegrounds. The only thing the Republicans have going is Biden’s deep problems. Without that, they’d be totally sunk in most swing areas.
4. Is there someone in the party who gets it right (or close to it) when talking about abortion? How and why? Nikki. You saw it last night.
5. Finish this sentence: “The Republican bumper sticker message on abortion should be _____________.” Now, explain. We Only Move Forward Together.
Sorry, I've got to jump on a plane. Just the Nikki stuff: we need to be more forgiving of each other and more respectful. We cannot force extreme policies from either side. No late term abortion. No jailing doctors. More adoption, make that easier. Find areas where we can work together and understand, under our federal system, New York and California have a right to take one view and Texas another.
I just have never understood the hard-line pro-lifers. If they don't want to have an abortion, they don't have to have one. But why they think they have the right to tell any woman what she can or can't do with her body just blows my mind. It's not like they care about the baby once it's been born anyway.
I like your article. It makes a lot of sense. I disagree with the last sentence though. Texas and other states that ban abortion are terrorizing women and girls. We are supposed to be a democracy, but republican politicians have made women second class citizens. Women will NOT allow that in upcoming elections.