Be Careful What You Wish For
For decades the abortion issue has been the main issue energizing Republican voters. It was the carrot dangling from the stick that was used by GOP political figures to get their most reliable voting block to the polls. That meant that Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that created a "right" to abortion out of thin air was the dragon, always to be slain but seemingly just out of reach. Then a most unlikely champion rode in on an orange horse, Donald J. Trump, a multiple divorced crass womanizing scoundrel. Trump won an astounding victory and then found himself with the opportunity to fill three Supreme Court openings, selecting Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and finally Amy Coney Barrett. Kavanaugh and Barrett replaced two liberal, pro-abortion justices (Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg respectively).
Then the unthinkable happened.
In June of 2022, the SCOTUS handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v Wade and correctly declared that there was no Constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. That threw the issue back to the states and abortion became illegal in many states, including my state of Indiana which was the first to pass a highly restrictive law post-Dobbs despite efforts from The Usual Suspects to block the law.
What is happening now is not what the evangelical/conservative Catholic voters expected. Having vanquished the abortion dragon in Roe, abortion did not become illegal in the U.S. Instead it is a patchwork of laws, with some states like mine banning it in almost all cases while others have made it legal essentially up to the moment of birth.
Yesterday, in an off year election, the abortion issue was on the ballot in Ohio as Issue 1 and abortion "rights" passed by a huge margin....
https://www.dispatch.com/elections/results/local/2023-11-07/00000/
3,775,181 votes were cast and abortion on demand until "fetal viability" won by nearly half a million votes. Compare that to the 2020 Presidential election results in Ohio...
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president
Over 5.8 million votes cast, with Trump winning by a similar margin to Issue 1. Trump won nearly as many votes in 2020 as were cast in total in the race yesterday.
It was clever to have Issue 1 on the ballot this year instead of next during the Presidential election. With Trump on the ballot, it is likely the issue would have failed. Also aiding the baby killer bill was another state-wide initiative, Issue 2 that would make Ohio the latest state to legalize recreational marijuana and you can see the results indicate that the same people voting for infanticide also wanted to get high.
I would imagine that many Republican leaders in Ohio are privately happy about this as it gives the GOP their favorite carrot to dangle again and they are already pledging to do just that....
https://archive.ph/GfQ1u
Huffman echoed that sentiment, suggesting voters could see abortion issues on the ballot again in the future.
"Life is worth fighting for. As a grandparent of eight, the life of a baby is always worth the fight," Huffman said. "The national abortion industry funded by wealthy out-of-state special interests spent millions to pass this radical language that goes far past abortion on demand. This isn't the end. It is really just the beginning of a revolving door of ballot campaigns to repeal or replace Issue 1."
https://archive.ph/GfQ1u
This is election gold for Republicans and also might help Trump in 2024.
The broader issue to consider: abortion is no longer the top issue for Republican voters. It is for many, just as gun rights are for many others, but in 2016 Trump didn't win primarily as a pro-life candidate. His platform included pledges about the sanctity of life but what really drove his election was working class Whites who may or may not care much about abortion but do care about The Great Replacement and the open border, who do care about jobs and the economy, and who do care about not sending their kids to die in meaningless wars. Trump forgot about that in 2020.
Two million fewer voters showed up to vote yesterday in Ohio versus 2020, suggesting that abortion isn't the draw that it used to be or that many thought it was. That doesn't mean that abortion isn't a major issue, just that it is not the single issue that can sway elections.
Of course having said all that, all "elections" are fake and gay and have been for some time. I am quite certain most Republican leaders don't really give a crap about abortion but they talk as if they do to pander to pro-life evangelicals and Catholics. They don't care about gun rights and they clearly don't care about the border. It is all theater to keep the normies distracted and more importantly to keep the politician's heads from being on spikes. But having "won" the victory over Roe v Wade, pro-life conservatives are finding that their victory might be very fleeting indeed.