Dem
51
GOP
49
Democrats are well aware that abortion is their strongest issue and Republican laws banning the use of public roads for transporting people to abortion clinics is just so much more grist for their mills. They know what happened in all the statewide initiatives on abortion in 2022 and are going to act accordingly. In particular, Joe Biden's campaign is in the process of spending $25 million to run the ad below, entitled "These guys," in the battleground states.
The message is that reproductive health care is the woman's decision, and "the last people who should be involved are these guys." The Democrats' intention is to just keep hammering on abortion from now until Nov. 2024, attempting to make it the biggest issue of the campaign and the one that people base their vote on. Maybe if Donald Trump is a convicted felon by then, that issue will get a little airplay, too, but abortion is still the one the Democrats will be flogging for all it's worth.
A new PAC, "No Dem Left Behind," is starting to train activists to talk to voters about freedom and how it is a founding principle of the country. The argument is that you make the decisions about your life, not the government. That could even appeal to some Republicans who don't like the idea of the government telling people what they can and cannot do. If a Republican tells one of the activists that it is all right for the government to tell a woman that she can't have an abortion, the response could be "Is it also all right if that same government tells the woman that she must be vaccinated or go to jail?" The group is going to focus on talking to rural Republicans, who tend to oppose the idea of the government telling people what they can and cannot do.
Jennifer Holdsworth, a Democratic strategist, said: "You can't run a party talking about freedom and then base one of your major policies on taking one of the most fundamental freedoms away from half the population." RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said that she hopes Republicans can put out a good response when the question of abortion comes up, but she didn't specify what that response might be. (V)