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MAY 5, 2022

Meyerson on TAP

How Democrats Can Now Defeat Anti-Choice Republicans

And just about all elected Republicans are anti-choice.

In the wake of the provisional promulgation of the Supreme Court's
revocation of

**Roe v. Wade**, Republicans find themselves in the position of the dog
that caught the car. Herewith, a few suggested ways the Democrats can
convert their discomfort to defeat for the outrage they've finally
inflicted on the American people.

Yesterday,

**The New York Times** posted

both a map and a table showing the polling on how each of the 50 states
comes down on the question of abortion. That table offers a guide to how
Democrats can actualize various states' sentiments to elect more
pro-choice Democrats in November.

Consider Florida, where 56 percent of residents want to keep abortion,
in the

**Times**' phrase, "mostly legal," while just 38 percent want it to be
"mostly illegal." Republican Gov. (and presidential wannabe) Ron
DeSantis recently signed a law banning abortions after 15 weeks of
pregnancy, and anti-choice zealots in the legislature will likely now
want a new law making it illegal after six weeks or just plain
altogether. If he wants the party's presidential nod in 2024, DeSantis
should probably go along with them; if he wants to be re-elected this
November, he should try to duck the issue altogether. The Democrats
running against him should do all they can to highlight his anti-choice
stance, and if there's still time to put an initiative on the ballot,
they should force the question by letting voters decide abortion's
post-

**Roe** legality-a question DeSantis won't be able to duck without
the kind of contortions that would in themselves weaken his prospects.

In the swing states of Wisconsin, Arizona, and Pennsylvania-in all
three of which both senatorial and gubernatorial seats are up for
grabs-the supporters of abortion outnumber its opponents by 13
percentage points. In Michigan, where Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
will face a right-wing Republican challenger, abortion supporters
outnumber opponents by 16 percentage points. In largely libertarian
Nevada, where the incumbent Democratic senator and governor both face
what have been thought to be strong Republican challenges, abortion
backers outnumber its opponents by a whopping 32 percentage point
margin.

If the pro-choice Democrats can't figure out a way to win those
elections, shame on them.

The pro-choice sentiment of the majority of Americans can play a role in
numerous House contests as well. In California, where pro-choicers
outnumber anti-choicers by 20 percentage points, the legislature is now
planning to place a referendum on the November ballot that would
enshrine the right to an abortion in the state's constitution. The
debate around that referendum puts the three anti-choice Republican
House members from the outskirts of the L.A. metropolitan area in even
more serious peril of being unseated than they already are, and it could
do the same to some of the Republicans now representing inland
California as well. (By the way, the law that legalized abortions in
California, without putting that right into the state's constitution,
was signed in 1967 by the state's Republican governor-Ronald
Reagan-before his party succumbed to fundamentalist Christianity.)

Speaking of which, the

**Times**map of the individual states' views on abortion illustrates
that the opposition is centered not in heavily Catholic states, such as
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New Mexico, all of which
strongly support abortion rights, but in the fundamentalist Protestant
evangelical belt that runs from West Virginia to Mississippi and
Arkansas. Historically, evangelicals had no particular position on
abortion until the 1970s, when they began to see it as a feminist

**cause célèbre**. Which is one reason why the Republican opposition
to abortion can be quantified as less of a "pro-life" concern and much
more as a rage against uppity women.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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'Pelosi Has Endorsed Me. Steny Has Endorsed Me. Clyburn Has Endorsed
Me.'

Amidst a national outcry over abortion rights, House Majority Whip Jim
Clyburn visits San Antonio to campaign for pro-life Henry Cuellar. BY
ISABELLE GIUS & ADEN CHOATE

'Roe,' Precedent, and Reliance

In his draft opinion, Justice Alito dismisses the idea that unintended
pregnancies can upend women's lives. BY ANDREW KOPPELMAN

Means-Testing Student Debt Relief: Big Hassle, No Results

Almost nobody will likely fall above the proposed income threshold.
It's purely a tax on borrowers' time. BY DAVID DAYEN

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