The Democrats key to victory in 2024: “It’s the abortion, stupid”

It's also "the democracy, stupid."

We all know the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” coined by James Carville when he was advising Bill Clinton in his 1992 run for the White House. Carville went so far as to hang a sign in campaign headquarters with that mantra to remind candidate Bill Clinton to stay focused on the economy, which was the top concern of voters heading into the 1992 election. Obviously, it worked given Clinton won defeating incumbent GOP President George H.W. Bush.

Well given the results of Tuesday’s election, “It’s the economy, stupid” needs to be updated for the Democrats in 2024 to: “It’s the abortion, stupid.”  (Although a second sign saying “It’s the democracy, stupid” would also be a good idea.)

On Tuesday, Democrats once again overperformed in election after election by championing women’s reproductive freedom against the GOP’s goal of imposing their religious beliefs as law to deprive women of a fundamental human right. The most notable win was Ohio, a state Donald Trump won in 2020 over Joe Biden by eight points and where in 2022, GOP Governor Mike DeWine won re-election by a whopping 25 points with 62 percent of the vote to 37 percent.  

Well on Tuesday, 57 percent of Ohio voters cast a ballot to establish a constitutional right to abortion as well as to contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care and continuing a pregnancy.  These are basic human rights for women to decide their own destiny.  Yet Republicans lined up to oppose this measure including the popular Gov Mike DeWine who released an ad where he spewed lies about what the proposed amendment would do in an effort to defeat the amendment. DeWine failed.

But DeWine was not alone. In Virginia, GOP Governor Glenn Youngkin had pumped millions of dollars he had raised into the state legislative races in the hopes of flipping the Senate red and holding the GOP controlled House of Delegates so he could enact abortion bans.  While Youngkin publicly stated that his goal was a 15-week abortion ban, as Virginia Democratic elected officials, Senator Ghazala Hashmi and Delegate Sam Rasoul explained on my SiriusXM show, Youngkin had actually vowed to sign any “pro-life” legislation put on his desk.  The voters of Virginia got that and rejected Youngkin and the GOP’s agenda of Christian nationalism by giving Democrats control of both chambers of the state legislature.

And the Democratic governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear won re-election in a deep red State by repeatedly criticizing his Republican opponent for backing a state abortion ban that contains no exceptions for rape or incest.

As we all know, it wasn’t just on Tuesday that voters told us that they will defend a women’s right to reproductive freedom. We saw similar results in numerous elections since Roe was overturned in red, blue and purple states from Kansas to Wisconsin.   

What the GOP doesn’t get –or I think more accurately, doesn’t care—is that reproductive freedom is not a political issue.  It’s personal. In fact, it’s the most personal issue there is in that Republicans are forcing women to carry a fetus to term against their own will. The GOP doesn’t care what a woman wants—nor do they care about what the father wants. Republicans have even barbarically enacted laws to force women who are raped to carry the fetus of the rapist to term. And all of this is to serve the GOP’s goal of imposing their extreme religious beliefs upon all of us by law.

That is why in 2024, reproductive rights will be the central issue for Democrats. And the good news is that voters see Biden and the Democrats as the protectors of reproductive freedom. In fact, even in the NY Times battleground polls released Sunday that showed Biden trailing Trump in five of six states, on the issue of abortion voters trusted Biden by 9 points on this issue over  Trump. 

Wait until the ads start airing in state after state about how Trump has bragged he is the reason Roe was overturned and women were stripped of a constitutional right they had since 1973. For starters, Trump during the 2016 campaign vowed to appointed Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe. And Trump did just that, appointing the three justices who were the reason Roe was overturned.

But it’s not just that. After the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, Trump gleefully declared on camera and in media interviews that he was the reason for this.  Here are sample of Trump’s comments that will fill the Democrats ads in 2024:

A.    In May, while appearing in CNN Town Hall Trump boasted:  “I was able to terminate Roe v. Wade after 50 years of trying,” adding he was “honored” to do so.

B.    Newsmax interview in May, Trump bragged: “I’m the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade, and everybody said that was an impossible thing to do.” He added, “I put on three Supreme Court justices. Very few people have had that privilege or honor.”

C.     Trump social media post earlier this year: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone … Without me there would be no 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever.”

The ads write themselves. They could begin with Trump vowing to appoint Supreme Court justices that would overturn Roe. Then we see Trump bragging after his justices did just that, with Trump boasting: “I terminated” Roe and “I killed” Roe and was “honored” to do so, adding, “Without me there would be no 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks, or whatever.”

Then we see in the ad the impact of this, with Republicans in 14 states banning abortion at conception meaning millions of women have lost a fundamental right. The ad continues to note that women are literally dying during pregnancy at three time higher rates in those red states,  Republicans now seek to prosecute people for trying to leave the state to access reproductive healthcare, etc. And that all builds to Trump in June pledging support for a national abortion ban that—as he told us in 2016—would include “some form of punishment” for the women who have abortions.

Democrats are on the same side as nearly 70 percent of Americans in a recent Gallup poll that support abortion. In contrast, the percentage of Americans wanting make abortion illegal in all circumstances has fallen from 21% in 2019 to 13% in 2023.

These polls mean nothing to the religious fundamentalists of the GOP. They won’t give up, they will just change tactics. In fact, in the lead up to Tuesday’s vote in Ohio on abortion as a right, Republican officials there tried to confuse voters by using misleading language on the actual ballot to summarize the proposal in a way they thought would help defeat the measure.  Obviously, their efforts failed.

Republicans get their views are not popular. It’s why on Tuesday night, former GOP Senator Rick Santorum during a TV interview after the results were announced in Ohio slammed the idea of allowing voters to directly vote on issues. Santorum complained that the Democratic “base is more ginned up to go out and vote generally than Republicans” and young people are now voting in big numbers. That led the former GOP presidential candidate to say the quiet part out loud: “I thank goodness that most of the states in this country don’t allow you to put everything on the ballot because pure democracies are not the way to run a country.”

The GOP is more desperate than ever to restrict or even end our democracy given polls show Americans reject their views on issue after issue from climate change to saving lives from gun violence to reproductive freedom. It’s why the GOP must suppress the vote and gerrymander to win. In fact, gerrymandering is affirmative action for Republicans. It’s also why a solid majority of Republicans--per polls--view the Jan 6 attack on our Capitol to keep Trump in power after he lost as “defending freedom” and as an act of “patriotism.”

I hope Democrats from Biden down don’t just have a sign up in their campaign offices that reads, “It’s the abortion, stupid.” But also one that reminds them, “It’s the democracy, stupid”—because that is truly want is on the ballot in 2024.

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