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Almost a 12 months in the past, as Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court docket justices ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats have been assured that the ruling would spark a backlash from voters. GOP officers heard the predictions — and scoffed.
Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell instructed NPR that he anticipated voters’ pursuits to lie elsewhere. A day earlier, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin stated one thing related, telling The Wall Avenue Journal, “I simply don’t assume that is going to be the large political difficulty all people thinks it's.”
These assumptions have been discredited quickly after. Republicans ought to’ve acquired a wake-up name in early August, when Kansas voters simply rejected a proposed constitutional modification that will’ve led to abortion restrictions. The GOP acquired one other reminder a number of weeks later, when the social gathering assumed it will win a congressional particular election in a aggressive New York district, proper earlier than a Democrat operating on an abortion-rights platform scored an upset.
Quickly after, Republicans struggled mightily within the 2022 midterm elections, and exit polling suggests the social gathering’s opposition to reproductive rights had loads to do with the outcomes.
This week, as Politico famous, the GOP suffered yet one more main setback as voters despatched an unmistakable message that the social gathering nonetheless refuses to listen to.
The drubbing Republicans took in Wisconsin this week revealed how dangerous the difficulty of abortion nonetheless is to the social gathering — and can possible stay via 2024. However following a state Supreme Court docket race that largely was a wholesale rebuke of GOP efforts to limit abortion rights, Republicans in states throughout the nation are plowing forward with new restrictions anyway.
This isn’t a scenario by which Republicans and their allies are merely unaware of political realities. They will learn the identical election outcomes and polling knowledge as everybody else. The GOP totally understands that the majority People merely don’t need Republican policymakers imposing new restrictions on reproductive rights.
However the social gathering is decided to maintain doing it anyway. From the Politico article:
Hours after the vote in Wisconsin, Idaho’s Republican governor, Brad Little signed laws prohibiting touring with a minor out of state for an abortion with out parental consent. That very same day, a Democratic lawmaker in North Carolina introduced she was switching events, giving Republicans a veto-proof majority and elevating the prospect of additional abortion restrictions within the state. After which there’s Florida, the place the legislature is quickly anticipated to ship a six-week abortion ban to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The editorial board of The Wall Avenue Journal, one of the vital Republican-friendly locations in nationwide print media, wrote after this week’s Wisconsin Supreme Court docket race, The Wisconsin outcomes present abortion continues to be politically potent. ... Republicans had higher get their abortion place straight, and extra in keeping with the place voters are or they'll face one other disappointment in 2024.”
That’s good recommendation that a lot of the social gathering is ready to utterly ignore.