This is a personal issue for every woman and every man. There are some states on the pro-life side [and] some on the pro-choice side, but the people decided. We don’t need to divide America over this issue anymore, [so] I would support anything that would get 60 Senate votes.
Nikki Haley (on abortion at Wednesday’s debate)
Most conservatives – across the spectrum – feel last week opened a Pandora’s Box of GOP problems; lost elections, Trump skipping another debate, and more pro-abortion victories. Still, all is not lost, because the week started with bad news for Biden.
CNN and New York Times polls documented how unlikely a Biden second term is. The Times poll of registered voters found Trump beating Biden in five battleground states (AZ, GA, MI, NE, PA) by up to 10 points. CNN’s national poll pegged Biden’s unpopularity at 61%, and found him behind Trump by 4 points. In a three-way race, it’s 41% for Trump, 35% for Biden, and 16% for Kennedy.
Asked why he was “trailing Trump” in the polls, the President snapped, “there are 10 polls — eight of them I’m beating him in – I’ll send them to you.” Not true, the Real Clear Politics average of 25 polls has Biden behind Trump (1.1 point) and Haley (2.7 points). This fact was not lost on Republicans Wednesday night.
Vivek Ramaswamy might get on your nerves, but he had the debate’s single act of brilliance, calling upon the DNC to “end this farce that Joe Biden is going to be the nominee – just tell us the truth [that] it’s Newsom or Michelle Obama or whoever else.” Channeling his inner Rush Limbaugh, he said what many conservatives would like to say:
“We know he’s not even the president of the United States, he’s a puppet. So have the guts to step up and be honest about who you’re actually going to put up.”
Calling out presidents was quite in style in Miami, because Ron DeSantis called out debate no-show, Donald Trump. “Now, if you look where we are now, Donald Trump’s a lot different guy than he was in 2016. He owes it to you to be on this stage and explain why he should get another chance” (especially after another Trump-endorsed candidate, AG Daniel Cameron, lost to Kentucky’s incumbent Democrat governor).
In the “spin room” later, DeSantis took on Trump’s insurmountable lead, claiming that “only 25% of the party” is locked into Trump, and recent polls suggest as much. The Times “if you had to decide today head-to-head” question found 44% DeSantis, 43% Biden, and only 7% undecided, but found 27% Trump, 27% Biden and a whopping 46% undecided. 58% of CNN’s respondents either disliked or had never heard of Nikki Haley, but somehow gave her a 49% to 43% lead over Biden. Methinks DeSantis suspects fake news.
As usual, Tuesday’s off-year elections attracted mostly “engaged” citizens, including predominant numbers of pro-choice voters in Ohio and Virginia. Ohio voters cast 3,863,000 total ballots, 2 million less than when Trump was on the ballot in 2020. Virginia voters cast 776,000 early ballots, 400,000 less than when Youngkin was on the ballot in 2021. Further, AP exit polls in Ohio found many Republicans voting for the abortion amendment, including a third of counties Trump carried by over 60%.
Ohio and Virginia voters sent the RNC a wake-up call: the only thing more unpopular than Joe Biden are Republican abortion limits. Americans want personal freedom, and the same voters that don’t want Democrats imposing race-based curricula don’t want Republicans imposing abortion bans. Cultural norms change, and the party’s leaders must see America the way it actually is today.
It is more secular (Gallup reports 55% of Americans seldom or never go to church), has more “happily single” women (Pew Research reports 45% of millennial women are NOT married with children), and performs fewer abortions (the CDC reported 615,911 surgical abortions in 2020, down from 1.6 million in 1990). On the debate stage, Nikki Haley was the only Republican pivoting toward this reality.
She calls abortion a “deeply personal” decision, citing her lived experience for her “unapologetically” pro-life beliefs. She supports what state electorates decide, won’t “judge anyone” for being pro-choice, and doesn’t want to “be judged” for being pro-life. Haley opposes laws that force pro-life doctors and nurses to perform abortions and laws that would arrest a women for having a legal abortion out of state, and she promised to sign into law “compromise” legislation from Congress.
Most of the punditry think DeSantis and Haley excelled, Ramaswamy was irritating, and Christie and Scott will be lucky to make it to Iowa. Actually, the so-called experts like Trump in a rout, so here’s a bit of advice to his supporters: stop hating on Republicans like Chris Christie and Nikki Haley, because either would be 100% better than four more years of Biden.
