MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — An illuminating moment for conservatives came at the Youth Advisory Roundtable when Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) asked a group of college students to raise their hands if they think Republicans should talk more about the issue of abortion.
Out of the group attending the event, which was hosted Monday by the Republican Nation Committee and the state GOP for young politicos ahead of the New Hampshire primary, only a few hands went up, and those that did only went up halfway.
It illustrated again for Republicans the delicacy of the parties’ messaging around abortion 18 months after the Supreme Court threw the issue back to voters.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is arguing that Republicans cannot sit back and be silent about something that’s so important to people on both sides.
“I thought [the students’ hesitancy] was interesting. I get where they’re coming from,” McDaniel said in a post-event interview with the Washington Examiner. “My point is: If there’s a void, and Democrats are going to fill it with lies, we can’t allow that to happen. So I think we should define ourselves up front, be proud of what we stand for as a party, and then that way, we don’t allow them to define us with lies.”
Conservatives fought for 50 years to turn abortion back over to voters and now often find themselves on the defensive over what to do now that it’s a reality. But McDaniel, responding to the tepid show of hands in New Hampshire, insisted Monday that now is not the time to back off.
“Do you think if we let [Democratic] lies stand and we don’t respond that that’s a good idea? Do you think we need to push back? Raise your hands if you think we need to push back on their lies,” she said. “Because that’s what they’re going to run on.”
Cammack, who co-chairs the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, agreed and had ideas on what should be stressed.
“We have to be very, very clear that defense of life doesn’t stop at birth,” she said. “If we are not the party of adoption and fostering and anti-human trafficking and really fighting for life in all of its forms, then we lose all the messaging.”
McDaniel and Cammack are correct that Democrats are eager to define the issue.
As New Hampshire voters headed to the primary polls Tuesday, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the first spouses held an abortion rights rally in Virginia.
“We have in Joe Biden a courageous fighter for our most fundamental freedoms as Americans, including the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body,” Harris said. “Across our nation, extremists have proposed and passed laws that criminalize doctors and clinics and women. … Let us all agree, one does not have to abandon their faith, their deeply held beliefs to believe the government should not be telling her what to do with her body.”
Harris has been especially engaged in the issue of abortion. She’s embarking on the “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour, which is the third abortion-rights speaking tour she’s made since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Stressing abortion rights was seen as a contributor to Democrats outperforming expectations in the 2022 midterm elections.
Republicans, on the other hand, seem split on how, or even whether, to talk about abortion.
The topic was hotly contested at the first Republican presidential primary debate last August.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the only candidate onstage that night who is still running, emphasized a practical approach, saying, “We need to stop demonizing the issue” to find consensus on banning late-term abortions, encouraging adoption, and protecting healthcare providers who have a contentious objection to the procedure.
Former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) pushed back on Haley’s pragmatism, with each saying they support a federal minimum standard of blocking abortion after 15 weeks gestation.
“Consensus is the opposite of leadership,” Pence said to Haley.
But both Pence and Scott have since dropped their 2024 bids. Meanwhile, GOP primary front-runner former President Donald Trump has tiptoed around the issue in a similar manner to Haley.
“You wouldn’t be asking that question, even talking about the issue, because for 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it, and I’m proud to have done it,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall in Iowa. “But I will say this. You have to win elections. Otherwise, you’re going to be back where you were, and you can’t let that ever happen again.”
That nuance between Haley and Trump’s positioning on the issue is not slowing the Democratic National Committee, however, which released ads ahead of the New Hampshire primary saying Trump and Haley support a national abortion ban.
Republican strategist Doug Heye predicts that abortion will remain a vexing issue for the GOP this election cycle, especially with each state crafting its own approach.
“The problem Republicans face on this issue is there’s no national messaging on this, and with 50 states, not really a way for there to be,” he said. “There was no post-Dobbs plan, so states are legislating out loud, causing Republicans to respond to whatever the most restrictive policies are — six-week ban, travel restrictions, etc.”
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Democrats, he says, have a national message: “No restrictions any time, anywhere, for any reason.”
Still, Haley has tried to turn the pressure around by saying the media should ask how many weeks Biden and Harris would allow abortion to happen. Haley’s prompting has shown a way forward on the issue for the GOP, Heye noted, but he says it is still very difficult to talk about when a Republican candidate’s message can be undercut by their own state legislature.
