Has The Abortion Issue Jumped The Shark For The GOP?

There’s an argument to be made that the Republican Party overplayed major moves to demolish women’s reproductive rights at the state level and ended up generating sufficient blowback, making the abortion issue a liability in some states. The New York Times runs a news analysis in their Tuesday edition that suggests that the issue is not only divisive but a potential liability for the GOP in some races:

Abortion is becoming an unexpectedly animating issue in the 2014 midterm elections. Republicans, through state ballot initiatives and legislation in Congress, are using it to stoke enthusiasm among core supporters. Democrats, mindful of how potent the subject has been in recent campaigns like last year’s governor’s race in Virginia, are looking to rally female voters by portraying their conservative opponents as callous on women’s issues.

“Republicans have turned the floor of the House into the battleground for their relentless war on women’s health care and freedoms,” said Representative Steve Israel of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Every time they launch another extreme attack against women’s rights, they lose more ground with women voters.”
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Reince Priebus Drew Angerer/The New York Times

Aware that their candidates at times have struck the wrong tone on issues of women’s health, Republicans in some states are now framing abortion in an economic context, arguing, for example, that the new federal health law uses public money to subsidize abortion coverage. In the House in the coming weeks, Republicans will make passing the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” one of their top priorities this year.

Democrats say their success this year will depend on how close they can come, given lower turnout, to President Obama’s overwhelming margins with female voters; in 2008, he enjoyed a 14-point advantage among women, and in 2012, it was 12 points.

The fraught politics of women’s health care are already surfacing, as restrictions on abortion are appearing on state ballots and becoming the focus of debate in congressional races — many in places like North Carolina and Colorado that could hold the key to whether Republicans can sweep Democrats from power in the Senate and maintain their grip on the House.

“I don’t think this is a niche issue anymore,” said Drew Lieberman, a vice president at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a political consultancy concern, who has advised Democratic congressional candidates and has done polling for Naral Pro-Choice America.

In North Carolina, Senator Kay Hagan, a Democrat in a difficult re-election fight, and her allies plan to make an issue of the new restrictions on abortion approved by the Republican-led state legislature. …

Nowhere was the power of the abortion issue more evident recently than in the governor’s race in Virginia, where the Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, won in November in part because women preferred him by nine percentage points over the Republican, Ken Cuccinelli, whom Democrats portrayed as extreme on women’s issues.

Nearly one-third — about $4.6 million — of the $16.4 million that Democrats and their allies spent on broadcast television advertising in Virginia last year dealt with abortion or birth control, according to an analysis by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising.

Abortion rights groups have built targeting models that allow them to predict an individual voter’s position on women’s health issues. These models, along with similar ones built by the Obama campaign, were factors not just in Virginia last year but also in Democratic electoral victories in 2012.

One state that Naral and Planned Parenthood are studying is North Carolina, where they see parallels to Virginia. Demographic changes there are giving Democrats hope that it could swing back into their column.

One of the leading contenders to be Ms. Hagan’s opponent in November is Thom Tillis, the speaker of the State House, who voted for the tough restrictions on abortion. Democrats believe that would set them up to make the same kinds of sharp attacks that helped them prevail over Mr. Cuccinelli in November and over Mitt Romney in 2012.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.