Former President Donald Trump is urging congressional Republicans to talk more about abortion on the campaign trail and deliver a unified message that the states should decide the issue.
In a pair of closed-door meetings last week with congressional Republicans, Mr. Trump warned that abortion is the party’s biggest weakness in elections and Democrats are whipping up fears about the Republicans plotting a national abortion ban if the GOP wins in November.
Mr. Trump said the party’s message should be clear: Voters in each state should decide the rules governing abortion, not lawmakers in Washington.
“He thought that gave members who have different views on this issue in our conference the ability to really localize it rather than have to talk about it in the broadest of national terms,” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said after the meeting.
Mr. Trump also stressed that Democrats with their unlimited abortion-on-demand agenda were the extremists on the issue, not Republicans.
He urged lawmakers to talk about the issue “correctly” to give them a better chance to grow the House majority and win a Senate majority.
The former president conceded that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion, was likely to blame for the GOP’s lackluster performance in the 2022 elections when an anticipated “red wave” didn’t come to fruition.
Republicans’ stance on abortion has been far from unified, with some calling for a federal ban after the 2022 Dobbs decision and others contending it should be up to the states to decide. Most agree that there should be exceptions such as in cases of rape or incest, but landing on how to convey that messaging to voters has alluded the GOP.
Polls show a sharp partisan divide on federal limits on abortion.
A KFF survey in February found 58% of U.S. adults oppose a 16-week abortion ban. A majority of Republicans (63%) support the proposal, while most Democrats (75%) and independents (59%) oppose it.
Rep. Kevin Hern, Oklahoma Republican, told The Washington Times that he agreed with the former president and that abortion access should not be determined “by just some arbitrary rule or a court case.”
“Everybody’s going state by state,” Mr. Hern said. “Until we have a federal position on that, you know, the people need to speak up.”
The abortion message is crucial for Republicans running in swing districts that President Biden won in 2020 as Democrats brand them as total-ban extremists.
Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, one of over a dozen vulnerable House Republicans, said the correct messaging on abortion will also help boost Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden in the battleground states.
“He obviously has an election to run as well,” he said.
Meanwhile, Democrats are hamming their abortion message and expanding the issue to include contraception and in vitro fertilization or IVF.
In the middle of Mr. Trump’s coaching session with the House GOP, the Supreme Court ruled to continue broad access to abortion pills like mifepristone. Hours later, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic messaging bill that would have protected access to IVF, arguing that there was no effort to eliminate or restrict the procedure.
Rep. Nancy Mace, South Carolina Republican, said abortion was her party’s “Achilles’ heel” if they don’t learn how to talk about it with voters.
“I liked that he said we need to speak about it correctly, and that it cost us. He’s willing to admit that we lost seats and we lost races. We could have won because we otherwise stuck our heads in the sand,” Ms. Mace said. “On the issue of abortion, I’m pro-life. I’m also pro-woman. The two are not mutually exclusive, and we shouldn’t be afraid of it.”
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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