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One week after the Supreme Court’s draft opinion on abolishing the constitutional right to abortion expires, Republican candidates and strategists are increasingly confident that such a decision will not seriously damage the Republican Party’s chances of regaining a majority in the House and Senate in November. as Democrats did, he guessed he could.
This belief is rooted in numerous opinion polls, almost all of which were conducted before the leak, showing that economic challenges, especially unexpected inflation, are the most powerful force motivating voters this year, followed by crime and immigration – issues which Republicans believe will have a lasting advantage. So far, they see little evidence that reproductive rights are set to shift these priorities, given the often muted response in countries that have already begun to curtail abortion rights.
“This is currently unknown territory for both sides,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Said in an interview last week. “I don’t think that will undo inflation, crime, open borders, frustration at school and all the other things that seem to push the president’s figures in the tank.
Republican candidates are likely to stick to the book, which many debuted last week after Politico first published the draft opinion of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. deer: belittling, deviating and avoiding – shifting public attention to what they think will be more powerful issues.
“If you come here with the argument that the sky is falling, I would look around North Carolina and say no,” said Sen. Tom Tillis (RN.C.), who won the 2014 election after supporting a law requiring pregnant women should have an ultrasound before an abortion.
Tillis is not on the ballot this year, but the other seat in the state Senate is, as are dozens of legislative seats. The likely Democratic candidate in the Senate, former Supreme Court Justice Cherry Beasley, is pushing for abortion rights at the center of his campaign, while leading Republicans include MP Ted Bud, former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Congressman Mark Walker. all are supported by their long-held views against abortion.
As long as Democrats seek to make abortion a problem, it will ultimately fail to break through, Tillis said. “This is exactly what the great strategists of the Democrats said many years ago: it’s about the economy, you fool, and this is what people will vote for.”
This is in stark contrast to what democratic leaders are saying publicly, pointing to potential deer turning as a medium-term change of the game. Party leaders foreshadow the threat not only of state bans on abortion, but also of a possible federal ban passed by Congress to motivate voters who support abortion rights to go to the polls and elect Democrats.
“Republicans in the Senate will no longer be able to hide from the horror they unleashed on American women,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) said Monday. “After spending years packing our courts with right-wing judges,” the time has come for Republicans – this new Republican MAGA party – to be held accountable.
Early opinion polls show little evidence of a massive crackdown on Republicans based on the impending threat of deer. A CNN study conducted immediately after the expiration showed that Americans prefer to keep deer intact by approximately 2 to 1, but Republicans still enjoyed a seven-point lead over Democrats when voters were asked about their medium-term preferences – a difference that would easily divert both houses to the GOP.
Democrats insist that this will change if the draft decision becomes official after candidates and groups start spending their huge military chests on an advertising campaign that highlights the threat to reproductive rights. Senior party leaders also believe that the issue will have a special resonance in some of the leading battlefields in the by-elections.
“There are certain countries that have even stronger support Rowe vs. Wade“Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.) Said, citing New Hampshire, Nevada and Arizona as places where party research has shown particular importance for abortion rights. “And there is a very clear contrast between where our candidates are … in these states and the Republican candidates, [who] have adopted, for the most part, very extreme views. “
In New Hampshire, Senator Maggie Hassan (D) immediately moved to put abortion rights at the center of his re-election campaign. In a May 3 speech to the Emily List, a political action committee that helps select Democratic candidates who support abortion rights, just hours after Politico published Alito’s draft, she described the election as a “no fight”. not only to protect reproductive health, but also the right of women to govern their own destiny. “
“This is a battle we need to win,” she said.
However, even in a country defined by her “Live Free or Die” approach to personal freedom, Republican candidates are betting that the issue will simply not be on the minds of voters. A week after the project ended, leading Republican candidates in the race – all men who describe themselves as “pro-life” – set out to dispel the issue by declaring it controversial in New Hampshire, whose Republican legislature and governor accepted a law last year that banned abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy, except to save the mother’s life and also introduced an ultrasound requirement.
“There has been outrage over this, along with the Concord extremists who are depriving them of their planned parenting funds, and people are very, very worried,” Hassan said in an interview last week. “And so I will continue to point out to voters that three of my Republican opponents have already approved Alito’s draft decision, and this is of great concern to the people of New Hampshire.
But Dave Carney, an adviser to Republican nominee Chuck Morse, said it was far from clear that the decision, if passed, would provoke outrage against Republicans. He cited millions of dollars in advertising costs last year, attacking New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who was considering running against Hassan, who focused on abortion law. The attack, he said, did nothing to damage Sununu’s popularity.
Morse, who serves as president of the U.S. Senate, said in a statement last week that Republicans “regulated the state” with last year’s legislation and that any Supreme Court decision similar to Alito’s “will not affect New Hampshire.”
“Opinion makes you think they’re actually going to say it’s up to the states to decide, and New Hampshire has decided, so it’s really not that big of a deal,” Carney said. Much more impactful in November, he said, would be the price of oil in a state where 80 percent of residents use it to heat their homes.
A similar balancing act is on display in Nevada, where the Republican Senate’s leading candidate, former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, issued a statement last week saying Alito’s opinion, if passed, would “represent a historic victory for the sanctity of life.” , while claiming that abortion rights are “currently established law in our country” – a reference to the 1990 electoral referendum, which guarantees abortion rights up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and which can only be revoked by another referendum .
Democrats have signaled that calling the referendum a “regulated law” will not solve much – citing Laxalt’s public reports as Attorney General in support of much more restrictive laws in other countries, among other aspects of his experience. showing opposition to abortion rights.
The current president of the Democrats, Senator Catherine Cortes Masto, told a conference on Emily’s list that “there is no doubt that Republicans will seek to undermine the 1990 referendum and that Laxalt will be an ‘automatic vote on legislation punishing women in search. abortion. ”
But Republicans say defending state law gives Laxalt some credibility in saying Nevada’s abortion laws are simply not at risk, allowing him to move quickly to other issues with more proven power than abortion. .
“This is not recorded in problem surveys,” said Josh Holmes, an ally of McConnell, whose firm Cavalry is consulting with Laxalt. “I am watching them. It’s just not. “
As the impact of the expired decision spread to the campaign trail, Republicans chose their words carefully – both out of concern that the final decision could be diluted and out of hope that the expiration itself could anger some voters.
On Friday, former President Donald Trump spoke for nearly an hour and a half at a rally in Pennsylvania, joined by Mehmet Oz, a doctor and television personality who, like Trump, voiced support for abortion rights before running for Republican candidate in the Senate. On the eve of a historic triumph against abortion that made Trump’s court appointments possible, the former president said briefly that their party was defending “innocent lives” – and that judges “are now making a very big decision.”
Several advisers said Trump was still trying to assess the political implications of the decision and whether it would be overturned. deer will be popular. He personally told his advisers that he would support limiting abortions, but that there would be “some exceptions”, said a person close to him. As President, Trump saw the abolition of abortion rights as a way to strengthen his support among evangelical voters.
Party authorities are equally vigilant about reports of possible abortion rights. Republican National Committee officials have worked with Trump adviser and strategist Kelian Conway and others on the right to talk about sending decisions about a decision like Alito’s.
Earlier this year, before the draft opinion expired, Conway conducted a survey on the RNC, which looked at different positions on abortion and how …
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