Something you’ve probably heard by now is that the Republican Party’s decision to decimate reproductive rights—and celebrate the overturning of Roe v. Wade like it was the greatest thing to ever happen to America—has not gone over great with voters. The 2022 midterm elections, which were supposed to be a red tsunami for the GOP, were anything but: Democrats picked up a seat in the Senate and Republicans just barely took back the House, with voters in critical states citing abortion as the most important issue of the day. A year later, the right to an abortion was enshrined in Ohio’s state constitution; Kentucky voters reelected pro-choice governor Andy Beshear; and Democrats took control of Virginia’s state legislature, preventing the GOP governor from limiting abortion moving forward, which he’d planned to do. The results were unambiguous: The American people want abortion rights.
Now, with the 2024 election less than a year away, what are Republicans running for higher office to do? According to GOP strategist and Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, the answer is simple: make their campaign slogan something like, “Yeah, we took away your reproductive rights, but, hey, we’re letting you keep contraception, and that’s something!”
Kellyanne’s comment is an embarrassingly dumb take of course, but I don’t know if she’s wrong in judging voters. I am mentally preparing for the worst this year…because it really does seem like the GOP just cannot underestimate the voting population.
For example, check out the poll citations at the end of this Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/01/biden-trump-new-years-message
It’s dumbfounding that in any poll, any time that Trump leads among voters under 35 and hispanic voters, and has 24 points less Black support. Yes, it’s one poll, yes, it’s too early to really matter. But Biden is somehow underwater in 538 polling by double digits. And this is following an election that Biden won by around 50,000 total votes.
My point here is not to discourage people from voting or to be nihilistic, or resign themselves to Trump. It’s the opposite. We need to get very fired up, because we are in an echo chamber, and the world outside of it seems to have the memory of a goldfish and a similar capacity to recognize fascism. I’m saying this because we are going to need every single vote in November, and we need to start talking to people outside of our bubble sooner rather than later.