It’s worth reflecting (even if it’s painful) as Republicans beat the tar out of one another on Capitol Hill over who will replace Kevin McCarthy:
How much grief could EVERYONE have been sparred if a Dobbs backlash hadn’t turned the 2022 GOP wave into a trickle?
A GOP majority of 40, 30, or hell, even 15 seats might not be at war with itself right now had Americans who were increasingly skeptical of Joe Biden and his party’s stewardship of the Covid response, inflation, and foreign affairs hadn’t turned out and behaved like single issue voters over a single Supreme Court decision.
New Jersey Democrats – facing a deteriorating political climate, a newly-potent South Jersey Republican establishment and the radioactive aftermath of Bob Menendez’s indictment – are banking on abortion to save them again this year because, candidly, they don’t have another issue in 2023. Opinions of Trump are hard-baked. Legislative cycles are turnout elections. From Gloucester to Somerset to Bergen and Monmouth, Democrat campaigns opened October with abortion-themed advertising.
“Rights, freedoms, stripped by extreme politicians; bringing Washington dysfunction to New Jersey,” the latest LD16 Democrat ad complains. “And Mike Pappas, Ross Traphagen, and Grace Zhang are ready to rubber stamp banning abortion, threatening healthcare and our families’ future.”
There’s every reason to think New Jersey Democrats will have more trouble making this stick than their counterparts last year. For starters, unlike in the 2022 federal contests, Garden State Republicans have an equally potent and motivating “social” issue working in their favor: parental rights and, specifically, Phil Murphy’s legal assault on school districts who want to keep parents informed of their kids’ choices.
If abortion does play a stronger-than-expected role in 2023? Republicans should once again look in the mirror if they’re looking for someone to blame. GOP candidates in swing-y districts who successfully overcame abortion attacks in 2022 didn’t run away from the issue. To the contrary, they articulated an unapologetic right-of-center position and unflinchingly explained how it was the Democrats, NOT the Republicans, who had jumped the ideological shark.
Can a party supporting abortion on demand up to 40 weeks and encouraging school children to pick a different gender without parental notice seriously accuse ANYONE else of being nutty? Not seriously, of course. But they get away with it when the GOP runs from the issue instead of confronting it.
Stay tuned…
