Uh Oh! Democrats' Silver Bullet Issue Is Losing Its Power This Election

I confess that I was distressed from a political perspective when the Trump-McConnell Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Yes, it was the right decision. But the hysteria (I can think of no better word for it) that erupted proved to be disastrous for the Republican Party.

In the spring of 2022, Team Red was eagerly rubbing its hands together in anticipation of walloping the Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. Then SCOTUS handed down its Dobbs v. Jackson decision, and we became the proverbial dog that caught the car.

Democrats seized their opportunity. I wrote at the time that "Democrats are going all-in on a massive abortion pep rally in the 2022 midterm races. They’re heading into the election cycle homestretch with a massive $124 million already spent on pro-abortion television ads — nearly 20 times what they spent pushing pregnancy termination in the 2018 midterms…"

In the end, we watched our promised red wave dry up into a pink trickle and instead had our a**es handed to us. And with its recently corrected status as a legislative matter, abortion promised to be a perennial issue. Right-wing strategists fretted that, with abortion on the table in every upcoming election from now on, there would always be enough single-issue pro-abortion voters to make it impossible for Republicans ever to win another election in almost every state as well as nationally.

I worried about this as well, but I was also hopeful that people would now be free to decide the abortion issue in a more regional and democratic manner. I figured it would settle into an uneasy peace sooner or later. Now, it looks as though the issue may already be easing down the importance scale, in time for the 2024 election.

Exhibit A is Florida. In April 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state's “Heartbeat Protection Act,” banning most abortions after six weeks of gestation. The political strategist in me cringed. Florida's deep red hue of recent years has been such a morale booster, that I was loathe to see it lost in the abortion wars. After legal challenges failed, the law went into effect last May, and I winced again. This election is crucial to America's preservation, and if we couldn't even hold Florida, what chance did the rest of the country have?

But guess what? Trump has steadily led Vice President Kamala Harris in Florida. The latest poll puts him double digits ahead of her. So it looks like the Sunshine State is okay with its current abortion law, at least enough to vote for the overall good of the country.

Georgia is Exhibit B. Trump won the state by over five points in 2016, but Biden took it in 2020 by a bit over 11,000 votes. The state then went on to hand both its U.S. Senate seats to Democrats. This is a state on the razor's edge, one in which we have no room for error this election. But two weeks ago, just one week before early voting would begin, the Georgia Supreme Court reinstated the state's six-week abortion ban. I winced when the news broke, figuring we had lost that state forever and those 16 electoral votes were as good as gone.

But once again, Georgians seem to have baked in their abortion stance and stayed on track to turn red again. Yes, Trump dipped briefly in the RCP average for the state, from 49.1% on Oct. 7 to 48.3% on Oct. 13, but he's back up to 48.9% today. Meanwhile, Harris, who was at 47.9% when the decision was announced, has sunk 1.5 points to 46.4% as of this writing. Georgia has been trending the right way since the law was reinstated, so what do I know?

Exhibit C is Louisiana. Despite the state's trigger law banning most abortions, Trump has led Harris by around 15 points since she stepped into Joe Biden's place. Mississippi is Exhibit D, another trigger-law state in which Trump leads Harris by double digits. I guess some parts of the country really do want to ban abortion. But then, Democrats have never admitted to themselves that not all women are pro-infanticide.

Then we have the example of Ohio. The year after the Dobbs decision, Ohioans added a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access in their state. Once the issue had been removed from the table, they went on their otherwise ruby-red way. Trump has led Harris handily in the state for this entire election cycle and is currently 7 points ahead in the RCP average.

A similar situation is unfolding in Arizona. Democrats cheered when the state put an initiative on this year's ballot to guarantee abortion access through the 24th week. "Now voters can see how horrible Republicans are and women won't vote for them and Arizona will put abortion on the ballot and every state with abortion on the ballot will automatically vote for Biden because abortion, and Trump will lose, abortion abortion!" I wrote at the time.

So how's it going? Sorry, Lefties, but Arizona is also lining up behind Trump in the RCP average, which currently has him at +1.8.

All of this points to an uncomfortable reality for Democrats: Americans just aren't as into abortion as they thought they were. While the gruesome procedure remains a sacrament in godless deep blue areas, opinions vary from state to state, town to town, person to person — even within individuals.

The brilliant U.S. Constitution has built-in protections for regional differences, allowing for a diversity of cultures and beliefs to exist within the United States. Yes, breaking the court-ordered federal ban on protections for the unborn initially sandbagged Republicans in the 2022 midterms. But now, in the longer game, it's allowing our regional differences to blossom once again. It's a good thing, and it's no longer an albatross for Republicans.

It will be nice to see if we can win fair and square once again, without standing on the bodies the aborted.