So: after his disastrous debate performance on the question of abortion, Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani has apparently decided to recalibrate his position, and will be a sorta-loud, sorta-proud proponent of abortion rights. At the same time, his aides suggest, he may downplay the early-states gauntlet of Iowa, NH, and SC, and stake his candidacy on a smashing win in Florida on January 29 (assuming that state’s decision to move that far up survives pressure from the RNC) and in the quasi-national primary on February 5.To the extent that this “new” position is a lot easier to explain and is consistent with his longstanding record in New York, it makes some sense, but it’s obviously a big gamble. Sure, anti-abortion activists are stronger in relatively low-turnout contests like the Iowa Caucuses than in, say, a California primary. But no one should underestimate the extent to which this is a litmus test issue for broad swaths of conservative GOP rank-and-file voters in almost every part of the country. And while Paul Waldman at TAPPED is right in suggesting that Rudy won’t get much of a pass from social conservatives for whom a politician’s position on abortion is essentially a symbolic reflection of their shared belief that American culture is plunging hellwards, Rudy’s bigger problem is going to be with the significant number of conservatives who really do think Roe v. Wade initiated an ongoing American Holocaust. They will do anything to deny Giuliani the nomination, up to and including reaching agreement on a single alternative candidate if necessary.A more immediate problem for Rudy is that his recalibrated position supporting abortion rights happened to coincide perfectly with a statement in Mexico by Pope Benedict XVI adding his personal authority to the conservative clerical contention that pro-choice Catholic politicians should be denied communion. And right away, the rector of the parish where Rudy’s last church-sanctioned marriage was performed told the New York Daily News that he’d deny Giuliani communion if he happened to show up at the altar rail there.This last news was a bit odd, insofar as it ignored the more obvious reason that Rudy might be denied communion at this particular church, or any other Catholic church: his civil dissolution of the marriage performed there, and his civil remarriage to a woman who had also been married twice previously. I sort of doubt Giuliani is going to be seeking communion anywhere, unless he’s pre-arranged it very carefully with a priest who’s willing to take an enormous amount of hierarchical heat.The Pope’s statement is actually bigger news for the four Catholic Democrats running for president: Richardson, Dodd, Biden and Kucinich. In 2004 John Kerry managed to take communion regularly with only a modicum of church-shopping, despite considerable conservative rumblings about denying him access to the sacrament. That may be a lot dicier for pro-choice Catholic Democrats now, on and off the presidential campaign trail.As for Rudy, putting aside his personal religious convictions, he would be politically smart to just go ahead and leave the Catholic Church under protest. His official Catholicism is very unlikely to survive this campaign. Abjuring it would make him one of millions of American ex-Catholics, without offending the many millions of Catholics who disagree with Church teachings on divorce and abortion but who aren’t visible enough in their views to get denied communion.In terms of Giuliani’s position on abortion, he’s probably waffling his way towards a stance that (1) expresses support for reversal of Roe v. Wade on constitutional grounds, (2) makes it clear he’d appoint federal judges who feel likewise, and (3) suggests that in a post-Roe world, he’d support state-level legislative efforts to protect basic abortion rights, though not from the Oval Office. As a practical matter, reversal of Roe is the major objective of anti-abortion activists, and they’d be happy to take their chances with a technically pro-choice president if that happened. Unfortunately for Rudy, his serpentine path on this subject may have fatally undermined any confidence that anti-choicers could trust him to appoint their kind of Supreme Court justices.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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July 11: If Biden “Steps Aside” and Harris Steps Up, There Should Be No Falloff in Support
At New York I discussed and tried to resolve one source of anxiety about a potential alternative ticket:
One very central dynamic in the recent saga of Democratic anxiety over Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump, given the weaknesses he displayed in his first 2024 debate, has been the role of his understudy, Vice-President Kamala Harris. My colleague Gabriel Debenedetti explained the problem nearly two years ago as the “Kamala Harris conundrum”:
“Top party donors have privately worried to close Obama allies that they’re skeptical of Harris’s prospects as a presidential candidate, citing the implosion of her 2020 campaign and her struggles as VP. Jockeying from other potential competitors, like frenemy Gavin Newsom, suggests that few would defer to her if Biden retired. Yet Harris’s strength among the party’s most influential voters nonetheless puts her in clear pole position.”
The perception that Harris is too unpopular to pick up the party banner if Biden dropped it, but too well-positioned to be pushed aside without huge collateral damage, was a major part of the mindset of political observers when evaluating Democratic options after the debate. But now fresher evidence of Harris’s public standing shows she’s just as viable as many of the candidates floated in fantasy scenarios about an “open convention,” “mini-primary,” or smoke-filled room that would sweep away both parts of the Biden-Harris ticket.
For a good while now, Harris’s job-approval numbers have been converging with Biden’s after trailing them initially. These indicate dismal popularity among voters generally, but not in a way that makes her an unacceptable replacement candidate should she be pressed into service in an emergency. As of now, her job-approval ratio in the FiveThirtyEight averages is 37.1 percent approve to 51.2 percent disapprove. Biden’s is 37.4 percent approve to 56.8 percent disapprove. In the favorability ratios tracked by RealClearPolitics, Harris is at 38.3 favorable to 54.6 percent unfavorable, while Biden is at 39.4 percent favorable to 56.9 percent unfavorable. There’s just not a great deal of difference other than slightly lower disapproval/unfavorable numbers for the veep.
On the crucial measurement of viability as a general-election candidate against Trump, there wasn’t much credible polling prior to the post-debate crisis. An Emerson survey in February 2024 showed Harris trailing Trump by 3 percent (43 percent to 46 percent), which was a better showing than Gavin Newsom (down ten points, 36 percent to 46 percent) or Gretchen Whitmer (down 12 points, 33 percent to 45 percent).
After the debate, though, there was a sudden cascade of polling matching Democratic alternatives against Trump, and while Harris’s strength varied, she consistently did as well as or better than the fantasy alternatives. The first cookie on the plate was a one-day June 28 survey from Data for Progress, which showed virtually indistinguishable polling against Trump by Biden, Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer. All of them trailed Trump by 2 to 3 percent among likely voters.
Then two national polls released on July 2 showed Harris doing better than other feasible Biden alternatives. Reuters/Ipsos (which showed Biden and Trump tied) had Harris within a point of Trump, while Newsom trailed by three points, Andy Beshear by four, Whitmer by five, and Pritzker by six points. Similarly, CNN showed Harris trailing Trump by just two points; Pete Buttigieg trailing by four points; and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer trailing him by five points.
Emerson came back with a new poll on July 9 that wasn’t as sunny as some for Democrats generally (every tested name trailed Trump, with Biden down by three points). But again, Harris (down by six points) did better than Newsom (down eight points); Buttigieg and Whitmer (down ten points); and Shapiro (down 12 points).
There’s been some talk that Harris might help Democrats with base constituencies that are sour about Biden. There’s not much publicly available evidence testing that hypothesis, though the crosstabs in the latest CNN poll do show Harris doing modestly better than Biden among people of color, voters under the age of 35, and women.
The bottom line is that one element of the “Kamala Harris conundrum” needs to be reconsidered. There should be no real drop-off in support if Biden (against current expectations) steps aside in favor of his vice-president (the only really feasible “replacement” scenario at this point). She probably has a higher ceiling of support than Biden as well, but in any event, she would have a fresh opportunity to make a strong first or second impression on many Americans who otherwise know little about her.