GOP senators, hopefuls fall in line with Trump’s abortion stance (with one exception)
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GOP candidates running for Senate in swing states are largely embracing the states’ rights message on abortion that Donald Trump outlined Monday.
The former president tried to defang the issue by neither endorsing nor explicitly ruling out a 15-week federal abortion ban, instead saying in a video message that states should determine their own abortion laws.
It’s the latest evolution of Republicans’ shifting position on abortion, as they have worked to find a message palatable for voters who have bucked Republican candidates’ antiabortion positions since Roe v. Wade was overturned nearly two years ago.
Trump has adopted what the National Republican Senatorial Committee has been encouraging Republican candidates to do for months: avoid calling for a national abortion ban and support exceptions for rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk. That message has been received and adopted by most GOP Senate candidates who have softened previously strict antiabortion stances and moved away from backing a national ban.
Arizona Republican candidate Kari Lake has shifted from her strict antiabortion stance, which led her to call abortion “execution” during her failed 2022 gubernatorial run. The state passed a 15-week ban, and advocates are pushing for a ballot initiative to codify abortion rights.
“I agree with President Trump: do NOT support a federal abortion ban,” Lake tweeted Monday.
In Nevada, one of the least restrictive states in the country for abortion, Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown has also softened his position.
Brown had opposed exceptions for rape and incest in the past but has since embraced them. As for a 20-week ban he backed in Texas, he has said he wouldn’t impose that in Nevada. He sat by his wife while she told NBC News about her abortion before they met in an attempt to show he had compassion and understanding of the complex issue.
“Like President Trump, I am pro-life and believe the issue is now correctly left at the state level,” Brown said in a statement to The Early.
In Michigan, former congressman Mike Rogers, the leading Republican candidate, backed near-total bans as a member of Congress.
But Michigan voted in 2022 to codify abortion rights, and Rogers shifted shortly after he announced his campaign for Senate to say a national ban would interfere with Michigan’s law protecting abortion rights.
In Pennsylvania, Republican Dave McCormick backed abortion restrictions with few exceptions in his last campaign for Senate in 2022. He has since pulled back from supporting a national ban and embraced exemptions. His spokeswoman said McCormick agrees with Trump’s stance.
In Florida, Republican Sen. Rick Scott, up for reelection, is on his heels after the state Supreme Court decided last week to allow a six-week ban to take effect in May.
Scott, who had said he would sign a six-week ban into law as governor, told The Washington Post he plans to vote against a November ballot initiative in Florida that would overturn the state’s new ban. But he added that he thinks Trump is right that the issue should be left to the states and that he appreciated that Trump “talked about the importance of making sure contraception and IVF [are] legal.” (Trump hasn’t reacted to the Florida court’s decision.)
In Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno supports a national abortion ban but also backs the idea that it should be decided by states.
“He’s comfortable with any path forward that ends elective, late term abortions with reasonable exceptions,” spokeswoman Reagan McCarthy said in a statement.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who is up for reelection but has no serious Democratic challenger, backed the 15-week abortion ban bill from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in 2022 and still supports it. Now he says he backs Trump’s position.
“I support a 15-week ban, but that’s not going to pass,” Hawley told reporters. “Let’s just be realistic. That’s not going to get 60 votes here. Let’s let people decide. Let voters vote.”
With his video announcement Monday that included no mention of a federal abortion ban, Trump bucked one camp of abortion opponents that had wanted him to back a 15-week ban - a group that included his former adviser Kellyanne Conway, Graham and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, as The Washington Post reported. Instead, he listened to other antiabortion advocates who wanted him to avoid being pinned down on a specific gestational limit that Congress wouldn’t be able to pass anyway.
Trump says he’s on the right side of politics. And he challenged Graham and others who disagreed.
“Many Good Republicans lost Elections because of this Issue, and people like Lindsey Graham, that are unrelenting, are handing Democrats their dream of the House, Senate, and perhaps even the Presidency,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday, responding to Graham’s criticism that he “respectfully disagrees” that Trump didn’t back a 15-week national ban because fetuses “feel pain” at that stage of gestation.
Democrats insist that kicking the issue to the states doesn’t take Republicans off the hook. They cite the plethora of instances when Republicans backed abortion bans, and even Trump has repeatedly taken credit for overturning Roe, including in his video announcing his position on states’ rights.
The Biden campaign released its second ad on abortion in as many weeks.
It’s an emotional, minute-long video of a couple showing the items they had for their baby before a miscarriage. The mom nearly died of sepsis, according to the ad, because a Texas hospital was unable to treat her miscarriage. “Donald Trump did this,” the words on the screen say.
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