Are abortion referendums a net positive for the GOP's elecotral hopes long-term?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Yes the GOP tends to lose almost all of them, but there are two political advantages it gives them vs abortion being decided by the legislatures:

1) The religious base doesn't blame the party for failing to ban abortion. Instead of R politicians being elected and too afraid to pass the controversial measure, they can merely point to the referendum and don't have chickens**t their way out of passing something like the 6 week ban.

2) It prevents the issue from being repeated every cycle by Democrats. Sure it will benefit the D's the same cycle its on the ballot, but after that its a non-issue as it can no longer be used anymore. If it were up to the legislatures, Democrats would be running on abortion each and every cycle but in states with a referendum it becomes one and done. See Ohio 2023, the abortion amendment will probably pass but it prevents Dems from using abortion as a rallying cause there in 2024 and beyond.

The only states that support an abortion ban is the south and maybe Utah/Idaho. Otherwise its pretty much political poison for the GOP and something they would rather avoid dealing with the consequences every cycle in swing states and just get it over with and move on.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Oh cool you’ve reached the bargaining stage

I don't neccesarily have this same perspective as it was a concept I found on RRH and thought I would just share it here to gain further insight on the subject.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Oh cool you’ve reached the bargaining stage

I don't neccesarily have this same perspective as it was a concept I found on RRH and thought I would just share it here to gain further insight on the subject.

What is RRH?

A right-wing elections site.

It's not city data level of right wing though, think of it mostly composed by moderate Rs. 

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Yes it helps the GOP. Anything that lowers the stakes and importance of abortion as a topic is good for the GOP outside of deep red states.

Looking at elections and referendums since Dobbs, voter seem to have an understanding of how credible the threat to legal abortion is.
Democrats running in blue states didn't seem to get much if any benefit from running on abortions. I'm looking especially at NY and CA here. There was no credible threat to legal abortion in those states.

When there was a credible threat to abortion like in PA+WI Governor races or the WI SC race, dems got a clear boost.

Yeah I was just saying that there was no way the GOP can win on the abortion issue in say Michigan.  If its done via a ballot referendum, it hurts them badly for one cycle (see 2022) but after that its pretty much a non-issue anymore. Every subsequent election doesn't become a de-facto referendum on abortion that the GOP loses 9/10 times.