Outgoing RNC chair: 'We cannot put our heads in the sand' on abortion

Ronna McDaniel, the outgoing chair of the Republican National Committee, on Friday again called on the party to adjust its messaging on abortion, cautioning that the GOP will not reach independent and swing voters if they don’t.

“We cannot put our heads in the sand and ignore abortion and the Dobbs decision,” McDaniel said in her parting speech to the committee’s 168 committee members in Houston. “Many of our candidates chose to ignore this issue and not talk about it.”

Her remarks came a day after President Joe Biden excoriated Republicans on the issue in his State of the Union address, a major liability for the GOP since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

McDaniel, who released a memo ahead of the 2022 midterms advising Republican candidates on how to discuss abortion after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe earlier that year, has continued to sound the alarm about the party’s approach to discussing abortion in the year and a half since.

“Go figure,” McDaniel continued. “I'm a suburban mom. I might have some opinions on this issue.”

Her guidance for Republicans is to emphasize support for “exceptions and reasonable limitations when a baby feels pain,” while contrasting it with Democrats who she said support “no exceptions, no limits, not even when a baby feels pain,” she reiterated Friday.

“We don’t win if we only talk to each other,” she said. “We have to go out and engage independent and swing voters and sell them on our vision for this country.”