Mr Jennings said he thought banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions, was smart politics, an idea the candidates would agree with in the states.
But when Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced the mandate as a federal ban before the midterms, the proposal drew backlash among Republicans who saw it, and the timing, as politically foolish.
However, in the final weeks of the midterms, many Republicans received a middle-of-the-road message: a 15-week limit excluding rape, domestic violence and women’s lives. He wanted to push Democrats to define their own age limit — and pretended to support “abortion until birth” if they refused. Almost all Democrats support federal legislation that would restore a version of the standard established by Roe: allowing abortions until the fetus is viable, about 23 weeks, and after that only if the pregnancy endangers the mother’s health.
Robert Blizzard, a veteran Republican pollster, noted that several Republicans who have often opposed abortion rights won major races in states like Florida, Georgia and Iowa. But elsewhere, for candidates who don’t have names, he said, “voters can use the abortion issue as a test of how compassionate they are, and how smart they are, to solve problems and do things.”
“There are some that we’ve had, especially in state races, that won’t pass muster” with independent voters, he added.
Mr. Blizzard emphasized that it is impossible to know what will motivate voters in the 2024 election. But there is little doubt, he said, that the Democrats will continue to use the issue of abortion against the Republicans – and that in the middle they usually do well.
“Every metric you look at shows that it energizes the left and strengthens democracy, which it did,” he said. “At times, when we’ve dealt with other issues – whether it’s the economy, inflation, the border, anything that’s going on in a state or a region – we’ve done, I think, well. But in the areas where we haven’t been able to change the issue of race, we haven’t done well.”
“In terms of moving forward,” he continued, citing the political uncertainty surrounding the issue, “I don’t think anyone has a solid answer to this.”
