The flip side of the abortion issue...what if the GOP moderates, and their rural margins collapse?

[BG-NY]

You will not find a more pro-abortion person than me, but I wonder if moving in that direction from a policy perspective has consequences.

Chuck Schumer said in 2016:

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."

This turned out to be incorrect, of course. What if the GOP makes that same trade, and is even less viable as a party?

It might require them to thread the needle more aptly on the abortion question than one would think.

[Vosem]

Existing GOP candidates who moderated on abortion (the Moore political dynasty in WV comes to mind instantly) have not taken a penalty from pro-life voters. This if anything seems less likely to happen now than it might've been 20 years ago (when the GOP nominated pro-choice candidates more frequently and this still never happened), since there is a broader spectrum of 'religious freedom' questions that can be used to appeal to religious voters than just anti-abortion sentiment.

[BG-NY]

Existing GOP candidates who moderated on abortion (the Moore political dynasty in WV comes to mind instantly) have not taken a penalty from pro-life voters. This if anything seems less likely to happen now than it might've been 20 years ago (when the GOP nominated pro-choice candidates more frequently and this still never happened), since there is a broader spectrum of 'religious freedom' questions that can be used to appeal to religious voters than just anti-abortion sentiment.

Interestingly enough Vosem, this seems to be the one issue on which you're very moderate relative to the GOP plank.

[Vosem]

Existing GOP candidates who moderated on abortion (the Moore political dynasty in WV comes to mind instantly) have not taken a penalty from pro-life voters. This if anything seems less likely to happen now than it might've been 20 years ago (when the GOP nominated pro-choice candidates more frequently and this still never happened), since there is a broader spectrum of 'religious freedom' questions that can be used to appeal to religious voters than just anti-abortion sentiment.

Interestingly enough Vosem, this seems to be the one issue on which you're very moderate relative to the GOP plank.

I've known people who've managed Republican campaigns/attended debates/spoken to voters; I'm quite moderate overall relative to GOP planks.

[Person Man]

Non-southern rural areas have the longest history of being Republican. Look at Kansas. Republicans did really well despite the abortion thing. I think in Nebraska, Kansas, and even places like Iowa, Montana, and especially places like Alaska, it would probably help Republicans to pass a law that would explicitly legalize first trimester abortions while making "quick" abortions a crime with reasonable exceptions (nonviable fetus, its a choice between that and a 90% chance of a hysterectomy or a 50% chance of dying, but not something like when the pregnancy is the result of abuse).

[Arizona Iced Tea]

So there are two things, margins and turnout. Even if the GOP were to moderate I am skeptical that their margins would decrease as I doubt voters will switch to Dems. What could happen though is the rural areas simply don't turnout as much as they did under Trump which would be a disaster.

[DaleCooper]

The problem you're running into is that the GOP is full of true believers now. The number of pro-abortion or apathetic Republicans that are just pro-life for the votes is very low by now. Trump is the main exception of course, but Republican voters are dumb enough to think he's honest.

[Skill and Chance]

It's possible.  However, the risk would be in the South rather than the Midwest.  The rural Midwest is way more pro-choice than they are Dem.  However, there's a not crazy argument that the abortion bans net helped Republicans in Georgia and Texas.  Those are the 2 states where falling off in the 90% R rural counties could really matter. 

[Vosem]

The problem you're running into is that the GOP is full of true believers now. The number of pro-abortion or apathetic Republicans that are just pro-life for the votes is very low by now. Trump is the main exception of course, but Republican voters are dumb enough to think he's honest.

No, the evidence of every referendum ever suggests this actually isn't the case, and that pro-choice Republicans are actually a pretty large minority of the party even in the Bible Belt much less in the Midwest -- consider Kansas and Michigan and Kentucky. (And Mississippi, actually.) The issue is that they are a minority, and that the restrictions on legislation that existed before Dobbs allowed the party to become very doctrinaire on the issue.

There are lots of issues where one party supports one side, and the other the reverse side, but where their supporters are not evenly matched, and one party or the other actually has an advantage. My guess is that the GOP will learn to deemphasize things (much as the Democrats learned to deemphasize actually restricting gun ownership), but it'll be a gradual process and probably with many slip-ups.

[DaleCooper]

The problem you're running into is that the GOP is full of true believers now. The number of pro-abortion or apathetic Republicans that are just pro-life for the votes is very low by now. Trump is the main exception of course, but Republican voters are dumb enough to think he's honest.

No, the evidence of every referendum ever suggests this actually isn't the case, and that pro-choice Republicans are actually a pretty large minority of the party even in the Bible Belt much less in the Midwest -- consider Kansas and Michigan and Kentucky. (And Mississippi, actually.) The issue is that they are a minority, and that the restrictions on legislation that existed before Dobbs allowed the party to become very doctrinaire on the issue.

There are lots of issues where one party supports one side, and the other the reverse side, but where their supporters are not evenly matched, and one party or the other actually has an advantage. My guess is that the GOP will learn to deemphasize things (much as the Democrats learned to deemphasize actually restricting gun ownership), but it'll be a gradual process and probably with many slip-ups.

I was talking about the politicians, not the voters.

[Skill and Chance]

The problem you're running into is that the GOP is full of true believers now. The number of pro-abortion or apathetic Republicans that are just pro-life for the votes is very low by now. Trump is the main exception of course, but Republican voters are dumb enough to think he's honest.

No, the evidence of every referendum ever suggests this actually isn't the case, and that pro-choice Republicans are actually a pretty large minority of the party even in the Bible Belt much less in the Midwest -- consider Kansas and Michigan and Kentucky. (And Mississippi, actually.) The issue is that they are a minority, and that the restrictions on legislation that existed before Dobbs allowed the party to become very doctrinaire on the issue.

There are lots of issues where one party supports one side, and the other the reverse side, but where their supporters are not evenly matched, and one party or the other actually has an advantage. My guess is that the GOP will learn to deemphasize things (much as the Democrats learned to deemphasize actually restricting gun ownership), but it'll be a gradual process and probably with many slip-ups.

I was talking about the politicians, not the voters.

If that's the case, I would expect the staunch pro-life non-Southern R's gradually get primaried out, and maybe a resurgence of pro-life Southern D's if the state bans stick in the long run.

[DaleCooper]

The problem you're running into is that the GOP is full of true believers now. The number of pro-abortion or apathetic Republicans that are just pro-life for the votes is very low by now. Trump is the main exception of course, but Republican voters are dumb enough to think he's honest.

No, the evidence of every referendum ever suggests this actually isn't the case, and that pro-choice Republicans are actually a pretty large minority of the party even in the Bible Belt much less in the Midwest -- consider Kansas and Michigan and Kentucky. (And Mississippi, actually.) The issue is that they are a minority, and that the restrictions on legislation that existed before Dobbs allowed the party to become very doctrinaire on the issue.

There are lots of issues where one party supports one side, and the other the reverse side, but where their supporters are not evenly matched, and one party or the other actually has an advantage. My guess is that the GOP will learn to deemphasize things (much as the Democrats learned to deemphasize actually restricting gun ownership), but it'll be a gradual process and probably with many slip-ups.

I was talking about the politicians, not the voters.

If that's the case, I would expect the staunch pro-life non-Southern R's gradually get primaried out, and maybe a resurgence of pro-life Southern D's if the state bans stick in the long run.

Not if the pro-choicers are in the minority of the primary electorate.

[Ferguson97]

Perhaps counterintuitively, moderating on the issue would be the worst of both worlds: pro-life voters would be outraged that the GOP is moderating on what they believe to be murder, and pro-choice voters just straight-up do not trust the GOP on the issue of abortion.

[Skill and Chance]

Perhaps counterintuitively, moderating on the issue would be the worst of both worlds: pro-life voters would be outraged that the GOP is moderating on what they believe to be murder, and pro-choice voters just straight-up do not trust the GOP on the issue of abortion.

The long term play is to leave it to the states and avoid discussing it federally as much as possible and hope it becomes something set in stone by the end of the decade like with Obamacare (huge backlash for the first ~5 years, then "whatever").

[oldtimer]

Existing GOP candidates who moderated on abortion (the Moore political dynasty in WV comes to mind instantly) have not taken a penalty from pro-life voters. This if anything seems less likely to happen now than it might've been 20 years ago (when the GOP nominated pro-choice candidates more frequently and this still never happened), since there is a broader spectrum of 'religious freedom' questions that can be used to appeal to religious voters than just anti-abortion sentiment.

It always depends on the state.

That's why you have states rights.
As long as you have no federal law or regulation, you can have politicians run on different things in different states.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Perhaps counterintuitively, moderating on the issue would be the worst of both worlds: pro-life voters would be outraged that the GOP is moderating on what they believe to be murder, and pro-choice voters just straight-up do not trust the GOP on the issue of abortion.

I suspect this is true in the short-term.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Most rural areas at this point are Republican for lots of reasons beyond abortion.  Where it might hurt is causing turnout to crater among people who attend large suburban evangelical churches, similar to the ones I'm most familiar with (or those votes to go to some third party).

[Ragnaroni]

Pete Wilson

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Most rural areas at this point are Republican for lots of reasons beyond abortion.  Where it might hurt is causing turnout to crater among people who attend large suburban evangelical churches, similar to the ones I'm most familiar with (or those votes to go to some third party).

Yeah, I was just going to post this. Rural areas obviously have way more people who self-describe as pro-life than big cities do, but the reasons for muh trendz in the rurals have more to do with other issues (Trump 2016 was the least convincingly pro-life Republican nominee this century, despite eventually appointing most of the Dobbs majority), and most of the activist base on "religious right" concerns lives in outer suburban areas rather than countryside.

[MarkD]

As a wise man once said (in an episode of Law & Order):
"If things were different, they wouldn't be the same."