'This is a losing issue': GOP campaign consultants panicked about upcoming midterms after Roe decision
According to a report from Politico, while Republicans are publically applauding a decision from the conservative Supreme Court to dismantle the 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision that allowed women to get an abortion, in private they are admitting it could not have come at a worse time.
In interviews with Politico's David Siders, Republican Party campaign consultants are throwing up their hands in frustration at a ruling that will make it harder for them to do their jobs in November -- particularly as they try to bring suburban women back into the fold after four years of Donald Trump.
As one GOP adviser put it: "This is a losing issue for Republicans.”
According to Siders' report, "... according to interviews with more than a dozen Republican strategists and party officials, they just didn’t want it to come right now — not during a midterm election campaign in which nearly everything had been going right for the GOP," adding, "In Republican circles, a consensus has been forming for weeks that the court’s overturning of a significant — and highly popular — precedent on a deeply felt issue will be a liability for the party in the midterms and beyond, undercutting Republicans to at least some degree with moderates and suburban women."
GOP strategist John Thomas explained, "This is not a conversation we want to have. We want to have a conversation about the economy. We want to have a conversation about Joe Biden, about pretty much anything else besides Roe."
A former GOP congressman agreed and stated, "The only thing [Democrats] have got going for them is the Roe thing, which is what, 40 years of settled law that will be changed that will cause some societal consternation. And can they turn that into some turnout? I think the answer is probably ‘Yes.’”
Politico's Siders wrote, "The problem for Republicans with the Roe decision is that it’s giving Democrats something to grasp onto in an otherwise bleak year — the kind of issue that may animate some lower-propensity voters, including young Democrats, to turn out in November, and blunt the GOP’s appeals to independent voters, a majority of whom also support Roe, according to Gallup."
GOP strategist Dave Carney concurred, telling Politico, "You go to any diner in America, and nobody’s talking about this."
"Already, Republicans are wincing at the consequences," the report states. "In the swing state of Pennsylvania, Democrats have been pummeling the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Doug Mastriano, for a position opposing abortion rights that includes no exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. In Georgia, another swing state, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, is facing similar criticism. In a message that Democrats will likely repeat for months, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock issued a fundraising appeal on Friday afternoon with the subject line: 'Our opponent says he wants a total ban on abortion.'"
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