James Carville is concerned — and so are progressives such as Bernie Sanders.
On Saturday, as Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson was chauffeured away in a luxury sedan from a Milwaukee “Rally for Roe,” which she attended with Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, I wondered if Democrats are betting too much on abortion. The rally, held at a high school in a working-class, predominantly African-American neighborhood, was sparsely attended: A month out from Election Day, the crowd filled up less than half of a gymnasium. While the issue of abortion energizes both Democratic donors and activists, crime and inflation are obviously much more important for voters in that neighborhood and Milwaukee in general.
At the rally, two acute problems for Barnes became apparent. The first is that his own position on abortion is so extreme that it will make it difficult for Barnes to make any gains against Johnson. When I asked Barnes if abortion should be legal when a baby is healthy and capable of surviving outside the womb — and the pregnancy doesn’t pose a risk to the mother’s physical health — he replied: “It all goes back to this decision being made between a woman and her doctor. That’s as simple as it gets.” As I noted in my write-up from the campaign trail: “For most voters, abortion after viability is indeed as simple as it gets: The overwhelming majority say it should be illegal. Viability (mostly a function of lung development) occurs as early as 21 to 22 weeks of pregnancy, and a 2013 study reported that data suggest abortions between weeks 20 and 28 of pregnancy are not performed for ‘reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.’”
The second problem for Barnes is that the stakes he described didn’t seem very high for people in Wisconsin. More from my report:
In theory, Wisconsin should be one of the states where the issue of abortion should help Democrats the most. They are campaigning against what they call the state’s “1849 law” that prohibits all abortions except to save the life of the mother. The law was enacted one year after Wisconsin was admitted to the union, enforced until 1973, and never repealed during the 49 years following Roe (even when Democrats controlled the legislature and the governorship — as recently as 2009 to 2011). The law is now facing a legal challenge, but elective abortions have stopped in the state.
One reason the general ban on abortion may not be moving many votes in Wisconsin is that it directly affects only a small percentage of residents, and its effect is very small. Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe, about 6,000 abortions were performed each year in a state of six million people, and, as the Guttmacher Institute notes, “some 97% of Wisconsin counties had no clinics that provided abortions.” Most of those abortions were performed in Milwaukee and Madison, cities close to Illinois, a state with an extremely permissive abortion policy.
“We already lose so much talent in this state. We have an issue with brain drain,” Barnes said at Saturday’s rally before condemning Johnson for “being so callous as to say women can go to Illinois — of all places.” The crowd laughed at Barnes’s jab at the rival state. “You know, honestly, people gotta go to Illinois for enough,” Barnes said, drawing more laughter from the crowd. The specter of a 50-minute car ride to Illinois doesn’t seem like the kind of issue that will move a lot of votes.
Some prominent Democrats have also begun to wonder if the party has bet too much on the issue of abortion. On Monday, the Associated Press published a story, “Nevada Senate race tests potency of abortion focus for Dems,” that includes an interesting comment from Democratic strategist James Carville:
Democrats predicted abortion would be Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s saving grace.
But inside Nevada’s crowded union halls, across its sun-scorched desert towns and on the buzzing Las Vegas strip, there are signs that outrage over the Supreme Court’s decision to dismantle abortion rights may not be enough to overcome intensifying economic concerns. . . .
“A lot of these consultants think if all we do is run abortion spots that will win for us. I don’t think so,” said Carville, a vocal Cortez Masto ally who has sent dozens of fundraising emails on her behalf. “It’s a good issue. But if you just sit there and they’re pummeling you on crime and pummeling you on the cost of living, you’ve got to be more aggressive than just yelling abortion every other word.”
It’s not just Clintonian strategists who are worried — the socialist wing of the Democratic Party is concerned too. In an op-ed that Bernie Sanders published on Monday, “Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistake,” he wrote: “As we enter the final weeks of the 2022 midterm elections, I am alarmed to hear the advice that many Democratic candidates are getting from establishment consultants and directors of well-funded Super Pacs that the closing argument of Democrats should focus only on abortion. Cut the 30-second abortion ads and coast to victory.” Sanders said that while abortion should remain an important issue, Democrats also need to focus on raising the minimum wage, raising taxes on billionaires, prescription drugs, health care, and paid family leave.
Of course, the counterargument to Sanders is that every minute Democrats spend talking about the economy is a minute they are reminding voters of inflation. The Dobbs decision, a major victory for the party out of power, allowed some states to limit or ban abortion, even in cases where a strong majority of voters say it should be legal.
It’s too early to say whether the tens of millions in spending on abortion ads will pay off for Democrats. If Barnes is able to pull off a victory, the abortion issue would likely be a key reason he was able to overcome the poor national political environment for Democrats. But this afternoon, Marquette University Law School released a poll that makes it seem like abortion won’t save Barnes and that the Wisconsin Senate race is no longer a toss-up: Ron Johnson was backed by 52 percent of likely voters and running six points ahead of Barnes.
New Marquette Law School Poll finds a wider margin in the US Senate race than in @mulawpoll a month ago, with Republican Ron Johnson supported by 52% and Democrat Mandela Barnes by 46% among likely voters. In September, it was Johnson 49%, Barnes 48%. #mulawpoll
— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) October 12, 2022
—John McCormack
Brittany’s Campaign Roundup
Republican Allan Fung is showing there’s strength in being moderate — at least in New England. Fung, who served as the mayor of Cranston, the second-largest city in Rhode Island, for twelve years, is leading in the race for the state’s second congressional district, where President Biden won by 13 points in 2020.
A new internal poll by Seth Magaziner’s campaign found Fung leading the Democrat 43 percent to 40 percent. If Fung were to win, he would become the first Republican candidate to win the seat in nearly 30 years.
As I reported today:
“I am more of a middle-right type person,” Fung told National Review during a recent interview when discussing Axios‘s suggestion that he “may be Republicans’ most moderate Candidate for Congress.”
“That’s where I want to help lead this rebirth of Republicans,” he said, adding that moderate Republicans don’t have a “single voice” in the House of Representatives right now. He cited Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine as the only moderate voice in Congress at all.
Fung’s moderate views seem to be paying off, with both Fox News power rankings and the Cook Political Report labeling the race a “Toss Up,” despite the district covering most of Providence and Cranston, both of which are reliably liberal areas.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) said over the summer that Fung is “a candidate that everybody should take seriously.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) called Fung a “quality opponent” last month. While he suggested Democrat Seth Magaziner will prevail in the race, Hoyer noted that Fung is “pretty popular” and “not an extremist.”
National Republicans have taken notice, dumping more than $1 million into the race.
A new Boston Globe/Suffolk University survey brought good news for Fung on Tuesday: he led Magaziner 45 percent to 37 percent. Thirteen percent of likely voters were undecided while another 5 percent supported independent William Gilbert.
—Brittany Bernstein
RealClearPolitics Polling Averages
Generic congressional ballot: Republicans +0.9
Republican Senate candidates lead:
Ohio: R +1.4 (Vance 46.2%, Ryan 44.8%)
North Carolina: R +1.5 (Budd 45.0%, Beasley 43.5%)
Nevada: R +2.1 (Laxalt 45.8%, Cortez Masto 43.7%)
Wisconsin: R +2.7 (Johnson 49.3%, Barnes 46.6%)
Democratic Senate candidates lead:
New Hampshire: D +5.3 (Hassan 49.0%, Bolduc 43.7%)
Pennsylvania: D +3.7 (Fetterman 46.0%, Oz 42.3%)
Arizona: D +4.1 (Kelly 49.0%, Masters 44.9%)
Georgia: D +3.8 (Warnock 48.0%, Walker 44.2%)
Race Ratings Changes
The Cook Political Report shifted the ratings of ten House races last week, including seven races that moved in favor of Democrats. Cook’s Dave Wasserman said while he still believes Republicans are favored to take back the House, he now thinks the party will pick up between five and 20 seats, an adjustment from his previous estimate of ten to 20 seats.
The races of Michigan Democrat Dan Kildee and Nevada Democrat Steven Horsford shifted from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat.”
Pennsylvania Democrat Susan Wild’s race changed from “lean Republican” to “toss-up.”
California Democrat Josh Harder’s race moved from “lean Democrat” to “likely Democrat.” Illinois Democrat Sean Casten’s race also went from “lean Democrat” to “likely Democrat.”
Florida Republican Maria Elvira Salazar’s race shifted from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.” Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks’s race also moved from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.”
The open race in Florida’s seventh congressional district moved from “likely Republican” to “solid Republican.”
The open race in Texas’s 15th district went from “lean Republican” to “likely Republican.”
The race between Democratic Representative Vicente Gonzalez and GOP Representative Mayra Flores moved from “lean Democrat” to “toss up.” The race for Oregon’s new sixth congressional district moved from “lean Democrat” to “toss up” as well.
Around NR
• Charles C. W. Cooke writes “there is nothing bigoted or illegitimate about opposing the election of senator because he has clearly been incapacitated by a terrible stroke,” arguing that recent updates make clear that Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman’s health is an electoral problem. Fetterman “struggles to understand what he hears and to speak clearly” after having a stroke in May, according to NBC News reporter Dasha Burns. The reporter said Fetterman relied on a monitor with live closed-captioning for their interview because of his “lingering auditory processing issues.” Meanwhile, the media’s “love affair” with Fetterman has helped to obscure his not-so-impressive political past, Jim Geraghty writes. Fetterman’s time as mayor is often touted, but the town was one where “mayoral vote totals don’t exceed three digits” and “the powers of the mayor’s office were limited.”
• Rich Lowry writes about Mandela Barnes’s fundamental problem:
Mandela Barnes may become the foremost political victim of the Left’s post–George Floyd politics.
The progressive assumption in the aftermath of the killing of Floyd was that once-radical positions were going mainstream, and, given how every major institution in American life instantly began to mouth the shibboleths of Black Lives Matter, it wasn’t a crazy belief. But it underestimated the continued support for law enforcement, and what the reaction would be to riots, calls to cut the budgets of police departments, and a spike in violent crime.
That Barnes, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin running for the U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Ron Johnson, is trying to transform himself from a voice and symbol of post–George Floyd radicalism to a middle-of-the-road, pro-cop Democrat tells you all you need to know about the profound misreading of the moment a few years ago.
• Madeleine Kearns writes that Michigan is sleepwalking toward abortion extremism:
A majority of Michigan voters disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to recent polling. Still, the state’s constitutional amendment appearing on the ballot in November’s midterm election goes way beyond Roe and vastly exceeds most liberal countries in abortion permissiveness. If passed, Proposal 3 would effectively enshrine a right to abortion on demand up to birth, remove parental-consent requirements for minors seeking “reproductive care” (abortion, contraception, and sterilization), and prevent patients from filing malpractice lawsuits in the case of botched abortions.
• Representative Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) was evasive on inflation during the first and only Ohio Senate debate, as I reported. Asked if President Biden is at fault for rising costs, Ryan replied: “Everybody is to blame.” He dodged a question about whether he believes Democrats’ spending bills, which he has voted for, have contributed to inflation. He concluded by saying that while “we could sit here and argue about why” inflation is happening, it is a “global phenomenon right now.”
• Democrat Stacey Abrams dismissed criticism that she did not properly concede the 2018 race for Georgia governor to Republican Brian Kemp. Abrams, who is now running for governor again in a rematch against Kemp, argued that despite saying she had “won” in a 2019 video, she was not casting doubt on the outcome of the election. Instead, she was merely “laying out the challenges that our voters face and the challenges our citizens face when we do not have a government that listens to them,” Abrams said of the video. “I acknowledged that Brian Kemp won — I acknowledged it repeatedly in that speech.”
• On former president Barack Obama’s curious absence at Democratic campaign events this cycle, Jim Geraghty writes:
Obama may well feel that his time as the Democratic Party’s campaigner in chief is over, and now it’s time for Biden to sink or swim on his own terms. In Obama’s mind, he’s LeBron James, and everyone else is just a lesser version of what he can offer.
Around the Web
Washington Free Beacon: ‘They Treat Me Like a Piece of S—’: Raphael Warnock’s Church Pays for His Home. It’s Also Trying To Evict the Poor From Theirs.