WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: US to Democrats: No, Really, We’re Okay with Some Abortion Restrictions.

A recent WSJ/NBC news poll has some data that might shock Democrats: Wendy Davis and her sneakers aside, a plurality of Americans support 20 week abortion bans of the kind passed in Texas. Forty-four percent of respondents said they would support the ban, with 37 percent opposed. And the numbers get more interesting the further down you dig. . . .

And, of course, when you expand the field of questioning from 20-week bans to late-term restrictions in general, the support gets even higher. As Gallup found, “One of the clearest messages from Gallup trends is that Americans oppose late-term abortion.”

In our post on the Texas abortion controversy we noted that “to many voters this will look like a law aimed at making abortion ‘safe, legal and rare.’” It seems we were right. While a lot of abortion policy is contentious and divisive, there is a clear plurality of Americans who both support keeping abortion legal under some circumstances and also support bills that impose some late-term restrictions and improve the safety of abortion centers.

This is why Republicans should encourage the Dems to make Wendy Davis their hero. The best thing you can do is to undermine your opponent by forcing them to defend a position that the country as a whole doesn’t like, but that their base demands. The Democrats thought they were doing that to the Republicans with gun control, but as it turned out, they were misinformed.