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NRCC Chair Richard Hudson advises vulnerable Republicans to “confidently articulate” their unpopular agenda to take away womens’ reproductive rights
Following weeks of getting called out for their constant attacks on reproductive freedoms, extreme House Republicans have come up with a bold new plan to advertise their anti-women, anti-abortion views: honesty.
With their extremist agenda “already causing headaches for Republicans in this election cycle,” NRCC chair Richard Hudson and Speaker Mike Johnson have perpetually ignored the fact that their continued efforts to strip women of their fundamental freedoms are completely out of touch with the American people.
REMINDER: Voters have rejected Republicans’ dangerous anti-choice policies in election after election, from the NY-03 special earlier this year, to Ohio, Wisconsin, Kansas, and beyond. Two thirds of the American public support a law guaranteeing a federal right to abortion and a decisive majority do not support a national abortion ban.
Read more from the Wall Street Journal below.
Wall Street Journal: House Republicans’ 2024 Strategy: Talk About Abortion More, Not Less
Natalie Andrews | March 13, 2024
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Republicans leading the party’s effort to defend the House in this fall’s elections are pushing GOP colleagues to openly discuss their positions on abortion, rather than try to sidestep the issue like many did in the previous campaign, arguing that doing so will be critical to winning competitive races.
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A memo prepared by House Republicans’ campaign arm and viewed by The Wall Street Journal says Republicans have a “brand problem, not a policy problem,” as their reluctance to discuss the issue left it to Democrats to define where the GOP stood. Many voters view the party’s hopefuls as opposing abortion under any circumstances, when there are actually a variety of positions held by candidates, particularly in swing districts, the memo states.
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Abortion has weighed on the party’s success in recent years. Republicans won back the House in 2022 but by a narrower-than-expected margin, a far cry from the “red wave” they had hoped would sweep them to a big majority in the chamber. Lawmakers from both parties say the Supreme Court’s decision that year ending the right to an abortion revved up abortion-rights voters and helped Democrats defend seats.
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Democrats counter that they are better aligned with voters. If Republicans “think people need to hear more about their unpopular antiabortion policies, go ahead. We’re confident voters will respond accordingly in November,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Viet Shelton.
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Republicans’ message has been a muddle for the past two years, with some members backing new federal restrictions and others saying the matter should be left to the states. More than a dozen GOP-controlled states have enacted a near ban on abortion, many of those with few exceptions for rape or incest. Others, like Florida, have banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
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Trump, the Republicans’ likely presidential nominee, hasn’t been clear on where he stands. The former president has taken credit for the ruling overturning Roe v. Wade—he put three conservative justices on the high court during his administration—while also criticizing Florida’s law as a “terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”
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More than half of the GOP conference had signed on to a bill defining a “human being” as beginning at “the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.” That had raised questions about where the party stood on IVF, used by many American couples who struggled to conceive children.
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Rep. Michelle Steel of California was a vulnerable Republican who had signed on to the bill that said life begins at conception. She took her name off the bill this past week, saying on the House floor that she was removing herself “from the bill because it could create confusion about my support for the blessings of having children through IVF.”
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