{"id":11929,"date":"2023-11-21T13:50:32","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T13:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/21\/role-abortion-rights-played-on-election-day-underestimated-by-gop-or-overstated-by-democrats\/"},"modified":"2023-11-21T13:50:32","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T13:50:32","slug":"role-abortion-rights-played-on-election-day-underestimated-by-gop-or-overstated-by-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/21\/role-abortion-rights-played-on-election-day-underestimated-by-gop-or-overstated-by-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"Role abortion rights played on Election Day: Underestimated by GOP or overstated by Democrats?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Republicans, this month\u2019s off-year elections were anything but a success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The results in gubernatorial and legislative showdowns as well as in some high-profile referendums gave Democrats a big shot of adrenalin while potentially serving as a warning sign for the GOP looking ahead to the 2024 elections for president and control of Congress.<\/p>\n

Apparently hurting Republicans for a second straight year at the ballot box was the combustible issue of legalized abortion.<\/p>\n

\u2018We do have to talk about abortion,\u2019 Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has been saying since the election results this month.<\/p>\n

McDaniel said GOP candidates \u2018are not responding to the lies of the Democrats on abortion. We have to come out and very vocally say where we stand.\u2019<\/p>\n

The month\u2019s election results were the latest in a slew of statewide victories for abortion rights since the blockbuster move last year by the Supreme Court\u2019s conservative majority to overturn the landmark, nearly half-century-old Roe v. Wade ruling, which had allowed for legalized abortions nationwide.<\/p>\n

The decision moved the divisive issue back to the states. And it\u2019s forced Republicans to play plenty of defense in elections across the country. A party that\u2019s nearly entirely \u2018pro-life\u2019 has had to deal with an electorate in which a majority of Americans support at least some form of abortion access.<\/p>\n

Democrats made abortion a major part of their messaging in Kentucky\u2019s gubernatorial showdown, in Virginia\u2019s legislative contests, in a state Supreme Court race in battleground Pennsylvania, and in an Ohio referendum on codifying abortion rights. And Democrats chalked up wins in all of those states.<\/p>\n

But veteran Republican strategist and Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who masterminded former President George W. Bush\u2019s two White House victories and served as his top White House political adviser, says the effect of abortion on this month\u2019s elections is overblown.<\/p>\n

\u2018Abortion might have helped Democrats sometimes, but the issue is hardly a silver bullet,\u2019 Rove wrote last week in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.<\/p>\n

And taking aim at the political weaknesses of President Biden, Rove said that \u2018as Virginia showed, as long as Mr. Biden is the face of the party, pro-life candidates can make gains on Democratic turf if they frame the abortion issue with care.\u2019<\/p>\n

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But Democrats see the issue of abortion as a continued \u2018mobilizing\u2019 factor to energize their base and attract crucial swing or moderate voters going forward.<\/p>\n

Veteran strategist and Democratic National Committee member Maria Cardona pointed to last year\u2019s midterms, in which the Democrats overperformed, and told Fox News that the 2023 results \u2018were similar to what happened in 2022 when everybody was predicting a red wave.\u2019<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to next year\u2019s contests, Cardona predicted that abortion \u2018is going to continue to be an incredibly mobilizing issue.\u2019<\/p>\n

Longtime GOP strategist David Kochel noted that abortion remains \u2018a terrible problem\u2019 for Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019re out of step with where the country is\u2019 on the issue, he said.<\/p>\n

Kochel, a veteran of numerous presidential and statewide campaigns in Iowa, acknowledged that Republicans are \u2018not going to win on abortion\u2019 and urged GOP candidates to \u2018fight where they can win \u2013 on the economy, foreign policy, competence.\u2019<\/p>\n

McDaniel, talking to Fox News Digital and other news organizations the night after this month\u2019s elections, said Republicans need to more forcefully push back on Democrat attacks over where they stand on abortion.<\/p>\n

\u2018If a lie is up against you with $30 million behind it, and you do not respond, that lie becomes the truth, and that\u2019s the Democrats\u2019 playbook, and our candidates have to respond on TV,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018As a suburban woman who\u2019s heading the party, we have to talk about abortion,\u2019 McDaniel added. \u2018If we do not get up on TV and define ourselves on this issue and allow the Democrats to do it for us, it\u2019s a losing strategy.\u2019<\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Republicans, this month\u2019s off-year elections were anything but a success.\u00a0 The results in gubernatorial and legislative showdowns as well as in some high-profile referendums gave Democrats a big shot of adrenalin while potentially serving as a warning sign for the GOP looking ahead to the 2024 elections for president and control of Congress. Apparently <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}