The midterm was not just a triumph for Democrats broadly; it was specifically a good night for reproductive rights. Not only did Democrats flip the House and Senate, but 3 of the 4 ballot measures on the subject passed. Congressional Democrats can block judges sympathetic to the anti-abortion movement and dare President Donald Trump to veto new protections. Nevertheless, there are warning signs for abortion-rights supporters for the remainder of Trump’s time in the White House.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, social conservatives will use these results to try to reassert their influence over the Republican Party. The argument, in short, is that Republicans would have fared better had abortion been a more important issue in the campaign. The ballot measures that protected abortion access can be chalked up to the blue wave that swept so many Republicans out of Congress. And in Idaho, voters in the middle of a blue wave comfortably rejected a proposal enshrining abortion rights.
There is no question that abortion was not as visible an issue in this midterm election, especially compared with 2022 or 2024. It is possible to attribute this trend to voters losing interest in the issue, or simply prioritizing more pressing concerns, like the cost of living or corruption.
Trump and his team had used the election as an excuse to postpone action on abortion. But that excuse is gone, and the clock is winding down on this presidency.
Already, social conservatives are arguing that a lack of focus on abortion depressed GOP turnout. “With Republicans not bringing the issue to the forefront, it has been difficult to mobilize pro-life voters,” Kelsey Pritchard, communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told Politico. A postelection memo from SBA and other anti-abortion-rights groups, shared with Politico, argued that “over the next two years, Republicans are going to have to figure out how to stake out a pro-life position that remotivates the base.”
Trump and his team had used the election as an excuse to postpone action on abortion. But that excuse is gone, and the clock is winding down on this presidency. Lawsuits filed by the attorneys general of Louisiana, Texas and Florida, and Missouri, Idaho and Kansas could force the administration to issue new restrictions on mifepristone. These and other cases ask the federal courts to treat a 19th century obscenity law called the Comstock Act as a national ban on receiving or mailing abortion-related items. The White House has already telegraphed plans to limit contraceptive access under the Title X program, and curtail the reach of a bill accommodating pregnant workers. Social conservatives are also keen to restrict surrogacy and in vitro fertilization.
Abortion foes will likely point to the midterms to convince the president that none of these steps would be as politically costly as might once have been the case. They will claim that even voters who overwhelmingly rejected the GOP and the president’s agenda also voted against Idaho’s reproductive rights proposal.
This argument doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, most ballot measures on abortion have passed, and this election was no exception. Nevada comfortably passed a measure that wrote reproductive rights into the state constitution. Virginia’s measure will protect existing policy against potential partisan change and create a platform to challenge some of the remaining restrictions in the state, including those limiting Medicaid reimbursement for abortion.
After this week’s historical repudiation, the president will be focused on his post-presidential future and may be more willing to cater to the major donors and conservative Christians who have been among his most consistent supporters.
Missouri’s measure was the most consequential win for reproductive rights. In 2024 the state’s voters passed a measure protecting reproductive rights. Republicans then responded with their own ballot measure that would criminalize abortion in the state constitution from the moment of fertilization, with narrow exceptions for preserving life, severe health threats, and rape and incest. More important, the same amendment pledged to prohibit certain forms of gender-affirming care for minors. The Missouri GOP’s strategy was a put-up job from the beginning. In addition to playing down the fact that it would criminalize virtually all procedures, Missouri Republicans banked on the idea that voters were against trans rights more than they were in favor of abortion rights. But in the end more than 55% of Missourians rejected the measure, Amendment 3.
What’s more, for abortion foes, Idaho’s result may not be easily replicable elsewhere, and not just because Idaho is one of the nation’s most conservative states. Roughly 480,000 Idahoans — almost 1 in 4 — belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church came out strongly against Idaho’s ballot measure and spent $1 million to defeat it. It is not clear that conservatives could repeat their success in a state with different demography.
But the idea that abortion doesn’t matter to voters will tempt many Republicans. After this week’s historical repudiation, the president will be focused on his post-presidential future and may be more willing to cater to the major donors and conservative Christians who have been among his most consistent supporters. Democrats might see reproductive rights as a secondary issue and postpone legislation protecting them rather than daring Trump into an unpopular veto. There is precedent for this kind of hesitation: In the Clinton and Obama presidencies, Democrats with significant majorities delayed action on reproductive rights. That kind of inaction only reinforced social conservatives’ claim that Republicans wouldn’t be punished for cracking down on abortion.
That talking point will also likely reappear as the 2028 shadow primary quickly takes shape. The leading 2028 contenders, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, will have to overcome their connection to a historically unpopular president and reinvigorate voters who stayed home this year. Both Rubio and Vance have deeper ties to the anti-abortion movement than Trump does and would be expected to more eagerly wield federal power to crack down on infertility treatment, abortion and contraception.
The midterm results don’t change the reality that Republicans will struggle with the abortion issue. Abortion rights have prevailed at the polls all but a handful of times since 2022. Nevertheless, social conservatives will put everything into their pitch. A president with little left to lose may be willing to listen, and the GOP’s next standard-bearer may see this election as reason to once again make social conservatives central to the party’s future.
The post Why abortion foes think the midterms helped their cause appeared first on MS NOW.
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