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DECEMBER 2, 2021

Meyerson on TAP

A

**Roe**Repeal Would Drive a Wedge Into Republicans' Aspirations

The party base is all for it, but the suburban swing voters who went
Republican last month in Virginia would be appalled.

If I were Glenn Youngkin, my anti-abortion views notwithstanding, I'm
not sure I'd welcome the Supreme Court tossing

**Roe v. Wade**. During his successful campaign this fall, Virginia's
now-incoming governor did his best to steer clear of the issue, as
multiple media outlets have documented
.

The keys to Youngkin's victory were very high turnout and support
levels in rural Virginia, home to a disproportionate share of Trumpified
right-wing evangelicals, and higher levels of support in the state's
suburbs and exurbs (such as Loudoun County) than Republicans had
attained during the preceding decade. Once

**Roe**is either pared down or nullified altogether, however, those
right-wing evangelicals will demand banning abortion outright in the
state, while many thousands of the suburban women (and some men) who
drifted into the Republican column last November will demand abortion
rights.

What's an incoming governor to do?

In states and districts where Republicans must attract suburban swing
voters to win elections, abortion is a wedge issue pitting those voters
against the Republican base. Given everything that's going on these
days, a

**Roe**repeal probably won't rise to the level of an electoral

**deus ex machina**for the Democrats, but it's almost certain to shift
the vote of the nation's Loudoun Counties more decisively back to the
Democrats come next November and, quite possibly, in November 2024 as
well. And the louder the base screams, as it surely will, for a ban on
all abortions, even in the case of rape or incest, the shakier the
party's hold on all the little Loudouns will become.

Once Youngkin takes office, Republicans will control the legislature's
lower house but Democrats will hold a one-seat majority in the state
Senate. That lower house is likely to pass a ban, while it's not clear
what, if anything, will emerge from the Senate. Youngkin may think that
legislative gridlock is his friend, allowing him to remain relatively
mute on the subject. His party, however, will want and expect him to be
volubly and aggressively pro-ban. (It's worth noting that it's
evangelicals, not Catholics-a majority of whom are pro-choice-who
power the anti-choice movement, and that they got, and keep, this
"pro-life" religion only in reaction against the emergence of a mass
feminist movement in the 1970s, and its continued existence today.)

Will Republicans come to regret getting what they've wished for? Keep
a close eye on new Gov. Youngkin.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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The Democratic Dilemma on Dark Money

Liberal electoral groups are now spending more from undisclosed donors
than Republicans. Campaigners don't readily give up winning
strategies. BY RACHEL M. COHEN

Why Would Anyone Expect Republicans to Implement the Biden Agenda?

Yet that's what the Build Back Better Act does with practically all of
its family care programs. BY DAVID DAYEN

Polite, Legal, and Unacknowledged: The Devastating Biases of Well-Heeled
Suburbia

Build Back Better highlights how upper-income whites engage in
discrimination every bit as harmful as that ascribed to working-class
whites. It also aims to stop it. BY RICHARD D. KAHLENBERG

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