[ Kansas voters affirmed a women’s right to choose. Meanwhile,
Republicans across the US elevated extremist candidates who may be
unpopular in general elections]
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TUESDAY’S PRIMARIES OFFERED A GLINT OF HOPE FOR DEMOCRATS THIS FALL
 
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Lloyd Green
August 3, 2022
The Guardian
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_ Kansas voters affirmed a women’s right to choose. Meanwhile,
Republicans across the US elevated extremist candidates who may be
unpopular in general elections _

‘In 2020, Donald Trump trounced Joe Biden in Kansas 56-42. Two
years later, an anti-choice referendum went down in defeat 59-41.’ ,
Photograph: Tammy Ljungblad/AP

 

Republican candidates from Arizona to Pennsylvania ought to worry. On
Tuesday, voters in Kansas rejected efforts
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gut a woman’s right to choose. In 2020, Donald Trump trounced Joe
Biden there 56-42. Two years later, an anti-choice referendum went
down in defeat 59-41. Suburban moms and dads had thundered; turnout
soared. The supreme court’s wholesale attack on Roe backfired.

The competing opinions authored by Justices Alito, Thomas and
Kavanaugh may gift the Democrats a two-seat gain in the Senate, and
doom Republican pick-ups of governorships in Michigan and
Pennsylvania. Grasp more than you can hold, and you will be left with
nothing, the Talmud says. On primary day, the high court’s decision
in Dobbs_ _seems to have energized plenty of otherwise loyal
Republicans. By the numbers, 65% of Americans
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the constitution enshrines a right of privacy even as they hold doubts
about abortion.

Trump-endorsed Senate hopefuls JD Vance (Ohio), Mehmet Oz
(Pennsylvania), Herschel Walker (Georgia) and Blake Masters (Arizona)
must now answer for the Republicans’ war on autonomy. Vance also
wants to ban pornography as he gives a greenlight to guns
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embraces Marjorie Taylor Greene. He claims smut harms fertility rates.

A recent Fox News poll
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Democrats with double-digit leads in Pennsylvania’s Senate and
governor’s races. Doug Mastriano, the Keystone state’s Republican
gubernatorial candidate, came under recent fire for his embrace of
Christian nationalism and ties with antisemitic figures. And Dr Oz is
Dr Oz.

Tudor Dixon, the Trump-backed winner of Tuesday’s Michigan
Republican gubernatorial primary, believes that a 14-year-old raped by
a relative should be forced to carry her pregnancy to term. “Yeah,
perfect example,” she told an interviewer.

Her remarks now are a centerpiece of incumbent Democrat Gretchen
Whitmer’s re-election efforts. Dixon opposes exceptions to an
abortion ban in cases of rape and incest. She trailed Whitmer by 11
points
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a July poll.

The Michigan Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative may also appear
on the fall ballot. Once upon a time opponents of Roe_ _claimed the
ruling was wrong because it was “anti-democratic”.

Adding fuel to this Great Lakes dumpster fire, Matt DePerno,
Michigan’s prospective Republican attorney general, openly mused
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restricting accessibility to contraception. At a Republican debate, he
questioned the validity of Griswold, the pertinent 1965 supreme court
ruling. For good measure, DePerno previously spearheaded efforts to
undo Biden’s 150,000-vote win in Michigan.

Tuesday’s contests were also about the 45th president exacting
revenge and promoting the “big lie” – that he was defrauded of
victory.

To be sure, not all Republicans
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the former guy was selling. But he had greater success than Kansas’s
pro-lifers. Trumpism remains very much alive.

In the state of Washington, incumbents Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan
Newhouse stand on the verge of rebuffing primary bids by
Trump-endorsed challengers. Both Representatives Herrera Beutler and
Newhouse voted to impeach the ex-reality show host over his role in
the January 6 insurrection.

On the other hand, Michigan’s Representative Peter Meijer, who voted
for Trump’s impeachment, lost to John Gibbs, a Trump-backed
challenger. Gibbs had received a boost from congressional Democrats
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as part of an audacious strategic move to empower Republicans they
think will lose in the general elections. Meijer, a supermarket chain
scion, lost by four points.

With the rightwing Gibbs as the Republican nominee, the Democrats
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a House seat. Had Meijer emerged with the Republican nod, he would
have been favored. All this raises the question of whether Democratic
talk about putting the country ahead of party is partisan blather.

Elsewhere, Trump claimed the head of Republican Rusty Bowers, the
outgoing speaker of the Arizona senate. He had opposed efforts to
overturn the 2020 election, and appeared before the January 6 select
committee.

Days after Bowers testified, Trump declared: “Bowers must be
defeated, and highly respected David Farnsworth is the man to do
it.”

Farnsworth believes that Satan stole the 2020 election. Really.

“This is a real conspiracy headed up by the devil himself,” he
explained at a debate.

Along with Farnsworth, Mark Finchem, a diehard election denier and
conspiracy theorist
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notched the Arizona Republican nomination for secretary of state. He
too had Trump’s blessing.

As for the state’s Republican primary for governor, Kari Lake holds
a two-point lead with more than 80% of precincts reporting. Like
Finchem and Farnsworth, Lake garnered a Trump endorsement and rejects
Biden’s legitimacy as president. Whether she actually wins the
primary and can prevail against Democrat Katie Hobbs, the current
secretary of state, remains to be seen.

With Kansas’s resounding no vote, Democrats have good reason to make
abortion a major issue for the midterms. Of course, as Republicans
learned on Tuesday, it is all too easy to go off the deep-end.

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_Lloyd Green is a regular contributor and served in the Department of
Justice from 1990 to 1992_

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