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Kari Lake campaigned for governor of Arizona last year as a fierce ally of former President Donald J. Trump, who was closely in tune with his party’s right-wing base, calling abortion the “ultimate sin” and supporting state restrictions on the time of the Civil War. The procedure.
This week, he made a notable change on the subject as he opened his candidacy for the United States Senate: he declared his opposition to a federal ban.
“Republicans allowed Democrats to define them on abortion,” Lake said in a statement to the New York Times about his break with the policy prescription favored by many anti-abortion groups and most of his party’s presidential contenders. She added that he supported additional resources for pregnant women and that “like President Trump, I believe this abortion issue should be left up to the states.”
Lake’s move, along with similar adjustments made by Republican Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Michigan, is part of a broader strategic effort by his party to recalibrate an issue that has become a political liability in battleground states and beyond. there.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, eliminating federal protections for abortion rights and handing Republicans one of their biggest political victories in a generation, voters have repeatedly supported abortion rights, even in red states.
The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is now training candidates to take the same tack as Lake: That is, to clearly express their opposition to a national ban on abortion, according to people familiar with the new strategy.
The group also urged candidates to express support for “reasonable limits” on late-term abortions with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, the people said. Instead of trying to avoid the issue, as many candidates did last year, he is advising Republicans to go on the offensive.
Senate Republicans were briefed last month on detailed research commissioned by One Nation, a nonprofit group aligned with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, showing that many Americans equated the term “pro- life” – traditionally used by Republicans – with support for a total ban on abortion without exceptions.
The research also showed that while voters opposed the idea of an outright ban, there was broader support for restrictions after 12 to 15 weeks of pregnancy, particularly with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life or health of Mother.
The nonprofit has suggested that Republicans communicate their views on abortion with empathy and compassion. Steven Law, president of One Nation, is also president of the Senate Leadership Fund, which has spent more than billion dollars in federal campaigns since 2016.
One of the central questions of the 2024 elections will be whether or not Republican candidates for Congress (and the White House) will be able to persuade voters that they have become more moderate on abortion promises.
“Voters have repeatedly rejected Republican politicians for supporting dangerous policies that deny women the right to access abortion,” said Sarah Guggenheimer, spokeswoman for the Senate Majority Political Action Committee dedicated to electing Democratic candidates. “This cynical effort by Mitch McConnell and the Republican candidates to mask their positions will not change that.”
The already challenging rebranding effort also carries significant risks, none more so than alienating anti-abortion activists in the party.
Since the fall of Roe v. Wade and the national rollback of abortion rights, the party’s anti-abortion voter base, which includes mostly evangelical Christians, has had higher expectations that Republican politicians will push to implement the strict anti-abortion policies they have implemented. It has been promising for decades.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students For Life of America, an anti-abortion organization with more than 1,000 groups. on campuses across the countryHe claimed that an ambiguity on abortion would be seen as a betrayal by these voters.
To counter swings of opinion among some Republican candidates, Hawkins’ group distributed a nine-page memo to members of the House and Senate. The memo, which had not been previously reported, urged members to continue supporting strict measures, but also encouraged them to be personal, supportive and specific in their opposition to abortion rights.
Hawkins said only “soft Republicans” would back down from a federal ban, as Lake has done, insisting that abortion was now an issue to be decided by the states.
The Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe, known as Dobbs v. Jackson, provided an opportunity to debate the issue at all levels of government, he said.
“They obviously didn’t read the Dobbs decision very well,” Hawkins said in an interview. “He is not saying that abortion is just a state issue; he is saying that this issue can be acted upon at the federal, state and local levels.”
Still, Trump has made an apparent political calculation, insisting that hardline positions on abortion cost the party a red wave of victories last year, and that it must avoid similar mistakes in 2024.
Blaming abortion allows Trump to sidestep the feeling among many Republicans that it was largely his choice of candidates who bought into his lies about the 2020 presidential election, which ultimately proved unpopular with general election voters in key states, making him that cost the party control. of the Senate and achieved a minimal majority in the House. He also ignores his own role in appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. But there is ample evidence that the abortion issue mattered.
Trump has declined to take an explicit position on whether he would support a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks, the basic position of many Republicans, as well as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading anti-abortion group. Last month, he criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a presidential rival, for signing a law banning six-week abortions.
Republican candidates in competitive states appear to be increasingly siding with the former president, even as the changes represent a clear break with his base of evangelical voters who care deeply about the issue.
In Michigan, former Rep. Mike Rogers’ platform for his Senate campaign includes opposition to a national abortion ban, even though he voted as a House member in 2012 and 2013 enact federal restrictions on abortion. In 2010He said he supported exceptions “just to prevent the death of the mother.”
“Will I go to Washington, DC and try to undo what the citizens of Michigan voted for?” Mr. Rogers said last month in DeWitt, Michigan, according to the detroit news. “I will not.”
In Pennsylvania, David McCormick began his second Senate bid last month and announced the same day that he did not want a national ban.
In his Senate campaign last year, McCormick gave multiple answers to questions about abortion exceptions. In a Republican primary debate in April 2022, she said that “in very rare cases, there should be exceptions for the life of the mother.” In other events, he suggested that rape and incest should be included as exceptions.
This year it has supported all three exceptions. In a Fox News interview last month, she said that opposed a national ban.
“This is also an issue where I think we have to show a lot of compassion and look for common ground,” McCormick told Fox News. “We should have contraception and reasonable limits on late-term abortion, and that is a compassionate and consensus position, and that is the position that I support.”
McCormick has won the endorsement of Republicans across the state and no other serious challengers for the party’s nomination have emerged.
Ms. Lake spent several minutes talking about abortion during her first speech as a Senate candidate in Arizona last week, something she acknowledged was rare for a Republican to mention. She described her position in general terms and said she wanted to “save babies and help women.”
“The Republican Party is going to put its money where its mouth is,” Lake said to the cheering crowd. “We’re going to give them real options so they can make better decisions and not live with that regret.”
Still, Lake did not mention his opposition to a national ban before the crowd, even though it is laid out on his campaign website.
“Kari Lake has repeatedly said she is a pro-life candidate,” said Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a nonprofit group that promotes anti-abortion policies. “I think the advice to oppose a federal ban is misguided.”