Trump boxed in on abortion as he tries to appeal to two bases heading into November

Abortion will play a critical role in the 2024 cycle as more states allow ballot measures on the issue ahead of the Nov. 5 election, and for former President Donald Trump, the issue has the potential to be a political landmine.

The former president’s abortion problem is twofold. He must continue to appease Republicans who advocate abortion restrictions while winning over moderate and independent voters who may not be too keen on limiting access to abortion.

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White evangelicals, who largely support restrictions on abortion, made up a third of the people who voted for Trump in 2020. Without that coalition, Trump would have lost to Biden by more than 20 percentage points, according to the Pew Research Center, making keeping their support crucial for the former president heading into November.

Meanwhile, securing the votes of moderates will be just as important for Trump, as Biden led him by 9 points, 52%-43%, in 2020 among independents. According to a recent poll conducted by the nonprofit health polling organization KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation, more independent voters trusted the Democratic Party on abortion at 38% than the Republican Party at 15% while 39% stated they didn’t trust either party. The poll is a potential warning sign for Trump as he rseeks to win over the coalition.  

Trump’s hesitation to clearly define where he stands on a federal abortion ban comes as he repeatedly brags that his presidency paved the way for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. However, his hesitation in defining his position on abortion hasn’t stopped him from garnering the support of those who support restrictions.

“President Trump’s advocacy and leadership led to the historic Dobbs decision and the pro-life movement’s greatest opportunity,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, in a statement Thursday.

SBA Pro-Life has long pushed for Republican presidential candidates to embrace a 15-week abortion ban and even criticized Trump’s campaign a year ago for attempting to claim abortion was now a state issue. But as Trump steamrolled his primary opponents to become the presumptive GOP nominee, SBA Pro-Life and other anti-abortion organizations have fallen into line behind him.

“As President Trump has acknowledged repeatedly, states now have the right restored to determine their own laws,” Dannenfelser continued. “Still, America has never been more in need of a National Defender of Life to rein in extremism of states like California. We have every hope and indication President Trump will argue for a 15-week minimum standard.”

However, Trump’s ownership of the overturning of Roe has also allowed Democrats to brand him negatively as an anti-woman leader.

President Joe Biden‘s campaign has seized on abortion and reproductive rights as a key component in the rematch with Trump after better-than-expected 2022 midterm results for Democrats. Biden’s campaign has sought to paint Trump as “extreme” on abortion, saying that the former president has made “it clear where he stands” in a statement on Thursday.

“You don’t have to take it from us, take it from Trump himself: He’s ‘honored’ that he ‘was able to kill Roe v. Wade.’ He’s said women should be punished for having abortions and supported doctors being criminalized for providing care,” Biden campaign spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said. “He’s bragged that extreme bans like Florida’s couldn’t have happened without him. The choice between Donald Trump’s extreme agenda to rip away women’s freedoms and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ work to protect them couldn’t be more clear — and women will vote accordingly this November.”

During a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday, Trump appeared willing to elaborate on where he stands on abortion. “We’ll be making a statement next week on abortion,” he said to reporters.

Trump’s remarks came one day after Florida’s Supreme Court issued two abortion rulings, highlighting the problems plaguing the GOP. It approved an abortion ballot measure for the November election and allowed a six-week abortion ban, which Trump criticized as a “terrible mistake,” signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to go into effect on May 1.

If 60% of Floridians approve the ballot measure, access to abortion will be enshrined in the state’s constitution.

Democrats view the Florida abortion ballot measure as a way to ensure that the Sunshine State, once known for its battleground status, could flip blue in November by driving up Democratic turnout. But GOP strategists remain skeptical of their efforts.

“It’s hard to say that Florida is a battleground state when it’s been shifting Republican,” said Steve Hilding, a Republican strategist and vice president of political consulting firm McShane. “Both times that President Trump [ran, he] won the state of Florida. Florida had a Democratic voter registration advantage. Now it has a Republican voter registration [advantage]. All signs are indicating it’s more red.”

SBA Pro-Life’s state affairs communications director, Kelsey Pritchard, pointed to GOP success in Florida during the 2022 midterm elections in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

“After Republicans passed a 15-week pro-life protection for babies in the womb, Florida experienced a red wave as Gov. Ron DeSantis was elected with a double-digit margin over his openly pro-abortion challenger,” Pritchard said. “Following that victory, the GOP returned with a clear mandate from the people and passed a new law to protect babies with beating hearts, including $25 million to serve moms.”

“Today, Republicans must expose how extreme this new pro-abortion amendment is. Just like in 2022, the Democrats are lying when they say they will turn Florida blue by touting abortion — they’re omitting key data and realities of ballots in other states,” Pritchard continued.

Arizona for Abortion Access, a coalition of reproductive rights organizations, announced this week it had collected 500,000 signatures, far above the 383,923 signatures needed to qualify for an abortion ballot measure in November.

Mary Ziegler, a law professor who studies the politics of reproduction at the University of California, Davis, told the Washington Examiner that Trump is trying to appeal to both anti-abortion Republicans and moderates through his official campaign and a “shadow” campaign speaking on his behalf.

Ziegler pointed to Jonathan Mitchell, an attorney who represented Trump before the Supreme Court after Colorado attempted to disqualify Trump from the ballot through the 14th Amendment, who said he supported implementing the Comstock Act of 1873 in a New York Times interview about Trump’s allies tactics to limit abortion. The Comstock Act prohibits the shipping of abortion-related drugs through the mail.

“We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books,” Mitchell told the New York Times.

Trump has not publicly said yet that he would support enforcing the Comstock Act, but that reticence likely benefits Trump, Ziegler said.

“He’s not being misled. Either moderates are being misled that he’s not going to do anything, or conservatives are being misled that he’s going to use the Comstock Act,” Ziegler said. “One way or another, he’s sort of managed to have it both ways.”

Ariel Hill-Davis, a Republican strategist and founder of Republican Women for Progress, said the GOP is in a difficult position as it relates to reproductive health care and abortion services due to the general public’s support.

A survey last month from health policy think tank KFF showed two-thirds of the public, including 86% of Democrats and 67% of independents, support a law guaranteeing a federal right to abortion, while 57% of Republicans oppose a law guaranteeing a federal right to abortion.

If Trump is “going to keep the social conservative voting bloc that is really supportive of him kind of happy, I think he’s going to have to end up somewhere in the 15-week range,” Hill-Davis said of Trump’s support for an abortion ban.

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Trump’s campaign pushed back against reports that he privately supports a 16-week abortion ban, but until he specifies where he stands, it’s unclear what he would do in a second term as president.

“It’s also very hard to win back voters on an issue when you arguably were the president that shifted the Supreme Court into the decisions that people are upset about,” Hill-Davis said.