Democrats have three issues to run on this year: abortion; hatred of Donald Trump and Jan. 6.
That is it. They all know it.
It worked for them in the 2022 congressional midterms. Republican strategists and pollsters didn’t take signs of such unrest seriously in many states. Republicans better take them seriously in 2024 or else America is going to see President Joe Biden remain in office for four more dreadful years and Democrats control the US Senate and Congress plus many state legislatures and governorships.
Hatred of Donald Trump for personal reasons is going to be tough to reverse. Most people rendered judgment on his character and personality long ago. In similar manner, most people have already decided whether they think Jan. 6 was an insurrection on the order of the Nazis burning down the Reichstag in 1933 one month after Hitler became Chancellor or a demonstration to petition their government and air their grievances under the First Amendment.
Hardly anyone with strong feelings on abortion is going to be have their position changed because of a 30-second commercial or ten pieces of campaign mail in the mailbox every day. But the unexpressed inner feelings of many unaffiliated independent voters can be reinforced if handled correctly.
Politics is like a basketball game in many respects. A campaign is either playing offense or defense and the team which is on offense the most usually wins. When a team puts pressure defense on the other team and forces them to make turnovers and bad decisions, they can turn pressure defense into a fast-break offense and win running away.
Democrats are great at putting conservative Republicans on the defensive when it comes to accusing them of wanting to, “take away every woman’s right to have an abortion!”; “Every Republican wants to force every woman to have a baby whether they want to or not!” and “Republicans want to put women who have abortions and their doctors in jail!” are just some of the many spurious attacks liberal Democrats hurl at Republicans.
When Republicans, especially male candidates, try to parse out the intricacies of abortion policy, they usually mess it up or clumsily fall into a tar pit of illogic from which they never recover.
In the vast majority of campaigns, abortion is not the deciding issue. If a candidate is going to win by 50 points anyway, their position for or against abortion is not going to change the final outcome.
However, in one congressional race (NC-01) and perhaps 15 or so state legislative races where the final margin is expected to be less than 2% either way, abortion could be the deciding factor.
What if the Republican candidate in each contested race goes on the offensive from the get-go and applies pressure defense on their Democratic opponent?
What if the Republican doesn’t wait to be attacked and simply says at the beginning of the campaign: “My opponent supports the Democratic position which supports abortion all the way up to birth and, in some cases, after the baby is delivered” ― and then just walks away?
First of all, such a tactic puts the onus of explanation on the Democrat, not the Republican candidate. It would force the Democrat to either agree with the radical far-left wing of the modern Democratic Socialist Party ―and horrify almost everyone in their district ― or start going down the timeline of the nine-month gestation period of a human infant-in-utero and come to some Solomonic decision on where they think abortion rights should be limited.
In all probability, it would be close to the same limit as the Republican.
According to most polls, the crucial Unaffiliated voter agrees with setting the upper limit for an abortion at 12-to-15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother due to complications in the pregnancy. If the Democrat falls anywhere above the time limit, unaffiliated voters get squeamish because they have seen sonograms of their own children and grandchildren with fingers and beating hearts at that stage.
My sister ― God rest her soul ― was a prominent activist in the pro-choice movement from 1973 until her death in 2010. She resigned from NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League, when they took a militant stand supporting late trimester abortions shortly before she died. She recognized the negative visceral impact such a policy would have on most American voters simply because the fetus was almost fully formed and ready to be birthed.
Republicans who let themselves get defined by their Democratic opponent on abortion this year will probably lose in close swing districts. Republicans who define their Democratic opponent as the extremist on abortion will probably win.
The congressional elections of 2022 should have taught Republicans a lesson.
