Donald Trump Blames the Republican Party’s Mediocre Midterm Performances on Candidates’ Abortion Positions
Former President Donald Trump believes that the Republican Party’s lackadaisical performance during the 2022 midterms is due to candidates’ abortion stances. This comes at a time when many Republican political consultants and pundits are blaming Trump’s decision to back several Republican candidates for the party’s overall mediocre performance in the midterms.
Generally, the party out of the White House makes big gains, if not outright takes back both chambers of Congress during the midterms. Republicans took back the House but failed to take back the Senate as Democrats expanded their lead there.
It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms,” Trump posted on January 1, 2023 on Truth Social. “It was the ‘abortion issue’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters.”
Trump claimed his win-loss record for the candidates he endorsed during the midterms was 233-to-20. Republicans control the United States House by a 222-212 margin. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell has criticized Trump-back candidates during the 2022 midterm cycle and has used the opportunity to justify a reversion back to the neoconservative status quo of promoting big business, mass migration, and never-ending wars.
Trump could be on to something here, however. Republicans will have to perhaps calibrate their message in accordance to the audience they’re targeting when it comes to wedge issues like abortion.
Repealing Roe v. Wade was a common sense issue that brought the abortion question back to the states to decide. However, a national abortion ban, which McConnell, himself previously proposed, is likely politically infeasible due to the amount of pro-choice states and moderate pro-choice voters in the nation who will oppose such proposals off the bat.
It simply makes more sense that stringent restriction abortion measures be put forward and passed in the Bible Belt while Republicans focus on other issues such as crime, immigration, and social degeneracy in more swing states. Ultimately, abortion is an issue that should be handled by the states, and this writer prefers to be in states that respect the right to life.
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