Opinion Columnists |

S.E. Cupp: On abortion, lessons not learned by Republicans

On Tuesday night, voters in a handful of important states gave us a crucial temperature check on the state of the union leading up to the 2024 presidential election — and it’s not good news for Republicans.

In Virginia, the very popular Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin was hoping his party would win control of the legislature — “hold the House, flip the Senate,” as he’s been chanting at rallies — but it was not to be. Democrats retained the Senate, delivering a powerful message that they would continue to be a check on his and Republicans’ powers.

In Kentucky, Democrat Andy Beshear won a second term as governor in a state that former President Donald Trump carried by more than 25 points in 2020. He defeated a Trump-endorsed Republican, Daniel Cameron, who some have suggested could be on a national ticket one day. Looks like that will likely have to wait.

And in Ohio, another red state that voted twice for Trump, voters decided to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution, delivering another blow to Republicans hoping to strip away abortion access.

Abortion is what ties all of these results together. It was both figuratively and literally on the ballot in this off-election year, and it likely drove voters to the polls in the same way it did in the 2022 midterms.

Americans couldn’t be any more declarative on this issue if they tried. In fact, I’ve written several versions of this column over the past few years. The gist? When will Republicans get the message on abortion?

Welp, not this week, it appears.

Back in August, Ohio voters gave their first indication that they weren’t having the Republicans’ hostile takeover of their rights, when they voted against Issue 1, which would have made it harder to amend the state constitution. This week, they sealed the deal.

That followed another decisive victory for abortion rights in Kansas, also a red state, in 2022, when it voted to keep abortion a constitutionally-protected right, and to prohibit the state from prosecuting people involved in abortions. The Republican-led amendment was defeated by an 18-point margin.

In Kentucky, Cameron, the attorney general, boasted on his official website that on “the same day as the Dobbs ruling,” overturning Roe v. Wade, his “decisive actions led to Kentucky’s two abortion clinics immediately closing their doors.” Beshear, who campaigned on adding exemptions to the state’s effective abortion ban, won a second term.

In Virginia, Youngkin had hoped to flip the state Senate to enact a 15-week abortion ban, with exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother. He’d been hammering what he called a “reasonable” proposal on the campaign trail, in hopes of softening the far-right’s extreme messaging on abortion.

But on Tuesday, voters rejected Youngkin’s efforts.

It turns out, it’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube when Republicans everywhere have clamped down on abortion rights and access in the wake of Dobbs. It’s perhaps especially difficult to “soften” messaging when Republicans have been suggesting barbaric, regressive and punitive ideas like jailing — and even killing!— women who have abortions. Somehow, that’s not a winning idea for Republicans — imagine that.

All of this was utterly predictable. As I’ve noted time and time again, attitudes on abortion in America have remained fixed and steady since Roe made it legal.

Since 1976, the first year Gallup began polling on the issue, a majority of Americans have always believed that abortion should be legal with some restrictions. A minority have always believed that it should be legal in all circumstances, and an even smaller minority has always believed it should be illegal in all circumstances.

Despite years of pro-life activism, angry and sometimes even violent protests outside of abortion clinics, Trump’s blatant pandering to the evangelical community, and the eventual overturning of 50 years of settled law, attitudes on abortion have not changed. If anything, voters have become more pro-choice.

Republicans thus far seem content to die on this hill, and dying they are. In 2020, 2022, and this round of elections, abortion has managed to save Democrats from rising crime, a border crisis, and a flagging economy in ways Republicans refuse to acknowledge.

But the math isn’t mathing, as the kids say. Extreme abortion laws that are far outside the mainstream — remember, a majority wants it legal but with some restrictions — are proving a loser for the GOP, over and over again.

Will Republicans ride their out-of-touch abortion bans into the 2024 sunset and hope that magically, after nearly 50 years of stasis, voters suddenly change their minds?

Probably. After all, doubling down on bad ideas — like Trump — has become a favorite pastime of the GOP. But on this one, they’ll do so at their own peril.

S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.