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dilemma for Republicans for the third time in a row in the 2024 presidential election. The answer: “hardly.”


IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID Ron DeSantis is arguably the most pro- life governor in the U.S. Running for re- election in 2022, he vowed to sign into law a six-week abortion ban bill. And he did just that in April 2023. Did voters penalize anti-Roe DeSan-


tis when he ran? Hardly. In fact, pro-life DeSantis


won reelection with the biggest major- ity of any Republican governor since the Civil War. He also swept Democrat (and pro-


Abortion Not Problem for GOP in 2024


T


The economy, border security, and Biden’s age worry voters the most. BY JOHN GIZZI


he post-mortems on the 2022 elections by the main- stream media’s punditocracy were almost unanimous on


why Republicans turned in a so-so per- formance in midterm contests in which they had expected to win big. The problem, they agreed, was


abortion. With the Supreme Court in August overturning the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal, the so-called “right to choose” returned to being a state rather than federal issue. Across the nation, pro-choice vot-


ers on the issue were upset, and with Democrats mobilizing them, Republi- cans fell short of an expected takeover of the U.S. Senate. The expected GOP sweep of the


40 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2024


House of Representatives ended up with Republicans clinging to a fi ve- seat advantage — the tightest division between the parties since 1930. The failure of Republicans last year


to take a majority in the Virginia House of Delegates or capture the governor- ship of Kentucky was widely blamed on the Supreme Court’s Dobbs deci- sion, which ended what advocates call “abortion rights” and returned the issue to the states. Danielle Butterfield, executive


director of Priorities USA, a Democrat super PAC, told Reuters her group’s research fi nds that abortion is still a priority for swing voters and said her group will deploy $75 million on a nationwide digital ad campaign that will emphasize abortion as an issue. So, it is only natural to ponder whether abortion will be a major


choice) strongholds like Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. We see a similar story in Ohio,


where Republican Gov. Mike De- Wine pushed, passed, and signed into law a 15-week heartbeat bill. And, like DeSantis, he won in a landslide. In liberal New York state, Republi-


cans picked up 11 congressional seats, with all 11 candidates being pro-life. In every race Democrats made abortion “the issue.” Ever since I began reporting four


decades ago, big media and the pundit class have always claimed the pro-life cause hurts Republicans. It doesn’t. Results show the GOP


wins with the pro-life position more often than not. The truth is, elections are most


often determined by the fi nances of ordinary Americans rather than social issues like abortion. The celebrated admonition of Dem-


ocrat strategist James Carville in 1992 still applies: “It’s the economy, stupid!” Perhaps the best example of Car-


ville’s words being true is found in a December Emerson College poll show- ing 44% of voters under the age of 30 nationwide cite the economy as the biggest issue the country faces. The same survey found that 14%


under 30 view healthcare as the most signifi cant issue facing the U.S.; 10% say education; and 8% each list crime


ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES


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