In a continuing effort to figure out the political consequences of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, I took a look at an important new survey and wrote it up at New York:

Since the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade empowered state governments to ban abortion, predictions about the future of U.S. abortion policy have focused on which party holds power in state governments. But public opinion in red states is not always aligned with the majority party’s positions, as shown by voters in deep-red Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana rejecting anti-abortion ballot measures last year. It’s been clear all along that there is a formidable pro-choice majority nationally, but how this majority is distributed matters a great deal under the Dobbs regime. Fortunately, the Public Religion Research Institute has now published a 50-state survey on abortion attitudes. And it should make a lot of Republican politicians and anti-abortion activists fearful.

PPRI found that there are pro-choice majorities in all but seven states:

“Majorities of residents in 43 states and the District of Columbia say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, and in 13 of those states and in DC, more than seven in ten residents support legal abortion. There are only seven states in which less than half of residents say abortion should be legal in most or all cases: South Dakota (42%), Utah (42%), Arkansas (43%), Oklahoma (45%), Idaho (49%), Mississippi (49%), and Tennessee (49%).”

There are also some particularly large pockets of pro-choice opinion in electoral-battleground states. Even if this data is only roughly accurate, it raises some important questions. Do Nevada Republicans really want to stake their future on imposing abortion policies opposed by 80 percent of their citizens? And do they want to defy 60 percent–plus support for legal abortion in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin? The trend lines are pretty clear as well: “Residents of nearly all states have become more likely to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases since PRRI’s last state-level data analysis, in 2018.”

Perhaps even more significantly, the percentage of those on either side of the abortion debate who treat the issue as a litmus test for voting has changed dramatically since Dobbs. In 2020, only 15 percent of pro-choice voters told PRRI “they will only vote for candidates who share their view on abortion”; now that number is 26 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of anti-abortion voters treating this as a litmus test has declined slightly from 29 percent to 25 percent. Abortion is no longer an issue salient mostly for those most likely to vote Republican.

There are some signs of hope in this data for would-be Republican anti-abortion lawmakers. PRRI finds that somewhat larger minorities of Americans support selected abortion restrictions that fall short of total bans (though not majorities in any of the restrictions tested), such as prohibitions on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. But, by the same token, there is overwhelming public opposition to some draconian measures the anti-abortion movement is insisting upon, such as bans on interstate travel to secure abortions (77 percent opposition) or the refusal to allow rape/incest exceptions to bans (72 percent opposition).

One potentially significant finding for Republicans who want to shake the iron grip of anti-abortion activists on their party is that the proportion of their own partisans who say they want to make all abortions illegal has dropped from 21 percent in 2021 to 14 percent in 2022. There is a sizable pro-choice minority among Republicans, as we saw in some of the 2022 ballot measure votes. PRRI finds that 37 percent of Republicans want abortion to be legal in all or most cases. In contrast, the anti-abortion faction of Democrats has all but disappeared; 86 percent of Democrats want all or most abortions to be legal, up from 71 percent as recently as 2010.

All in all, the notion that this is an equally divided nation on abortion policy, or that Republican state-level strength will make anti-abortion policies prevail everywhere other than in “coastal elite” pockets, doesn’t reflect the realities on the ground. The long-standing debate over gun violence does show that the GOP is willing and able to buck public opinion on issues near and dear to the hearts of those in their conservative base. But it’s no longer clear that Republican politicians or most Republican voters want to stake everything on remaining the party of forced birth.

The task of preventing another election theft effort in 2024 has rung up a few modest victories, including the enactment of Electoral Count Act reforms and the relatively small number of contested midterm results. But another step forward came from a most unlikely direction, as I explained at New York:

Of all the many evil (as opposed to merely criminal) things Donald Trump did during the 2020 presidential election cycle, what he did to demonize perfectly legal voting-by-mail opportunities ranked high. His unsubstantiated fraud claims against non–Election Day voting in person not only clouded (in the minds of his credulous supporters and cynical advisers) the legitimacy of marginal folk taking advantage of “convenience voting” to back the Democratic Party. He also convinced a lot of Republican voters to avoid mail-voting opportunities as morally tainted. And that created what came to be prophetically known as the “Red Mirage” scenario, in which Republicans would build up an early lead based on Election Day votes and then disparage late-arriving mail ballots as somehow fraudulent. Trump pulled the trigger on this strategy on Election Night, claiming an early victory that Democrats might subvert with ballot-box-stuffing utilizing presumably fake mail ballots that would be counted later on.

It all led to January 6, and then disgrace and ultimate defeat. And all along many Republicans complained that telling GOP voters to avoid early voting gave Democrats an advantage. A two-to-one advantage in the percentage of Democrats as compared to Republicans voting by mail in 2020 wound up being crucial. And finally, Trump is agreeing that’s unsustainable, as the Wall Street Journal reports:

“After years of assailing early voting, Donald Trump is having a change of heart. …

“Mr. Trump highlighted the move in a fundraising email this week, saying, ‘The radical Democrats have used ballot harvesting to cancel out YOUR vote and walk away with elections that they NEVER should have won. But I’m doing something HUGE to fight back.’

“The email added, ‘Our path forward is to MASTER the Democrats’ own game of harvesting ballots in every state we can. But that also means we need to start laying the foundation for victory RIGHT NOW.'”

Now this isn’t just a strategic retreat, much less an admission that critics of his attacks on voting by mail were right all along. Trump is essentially claiming Republicans need to engage in as much electoral skullduggery as Democrats in order to win.

It doesn’t mean he or his party will ever admit the legitimacy of past, present, or future electoral defeats.

But it does mean that Trump is going along with the GOP’s desire to compete with rather than attack or avoid early voting. And going down the road to 2024, it means Republicans (even if the 45th president is their presidential candidate) will be far less likely to claim premature victories or reject ultimate defeats on the basis of the flawed idea that only Election Day votes are legitimate. And for democracy, that is a very good thing.

 

The odds of Joe Biden running for reelection are now very high, but since we keep hearing of polls where Democratic voters are restive, it’s worth pondering the road that probably won’t be taken, so I did that at New York:

The estimable New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recent came out and said what a good number of Democrats occasionally think: They like Joe Biden and think he’s done a good job as president, but they’d rather see the 80-year-old step aside and let someone else run in 2024. Goldberg was very direct about it:

“It’s been widely reported that Biden plans to use the State of the Union to set up his case for re-election. There’s a rift in the Democratic Party about whether this is wise for an 80-year-old to do. Democratic officials are largely on board, at least publicly, but the majority of Democratic voters are not. ‘Democrats say he’s done a good job but he’s too old,’ said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who conducts regular voter focus groups. ‘He’ll be closer to 90 than 80 by the end of his second term.’ Perhaps reflecting this dynamic, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that while 78 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents approved of the job Biden has done as president, 58 percent of them wanted a different candidate next year.”

Regardless of what Democrats may want, the odds of Biden stepping aside are very low. The last sitting president to retire on his own terms after just one full term was Calvin Coolidge nearly a century ago. There are zero signs of any serious challengers stepping up to challenge Biden’s renomination, and restive Democratic voters will almost certainly come around once the 46th president becomes the party’s standard-bearer again.

But it’s worth considering what might happen if Biden does step aside. Goldberg’s view of this scenario is fairly sunny:

“Plenty of Democrats worry that if Biden steps aside, the nomination will go to Vice President Kamala Harris, who polls poorly. But Democrats have a deep bench, including politicians who’ve won in important purple states, like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia. Biden said he wanted to be a bridge to the next generation of Democrats. There are quite a few promising people qualified to cross it. A primary will give Democrats the chance to find the one who is suited for this moment.”

Unfortunately, a contested 2024 Democratic primary probably wouldn’t be a calm, deliberative process. It would more likely be a nasty and complicated slugfest leading to a shaky general-election campaign. The GOP presidential field is coming together pretty late compared with previous cycles, and even if Biden made a call soon, Democratic candidates would find themselves scrambling to put together a national campaign. Here are some likely consequences of a sudden Biden retirement.

Kamala Harris would run, but she wouldn’t clear the field.

The vice-president is Biden’s heir apparent, though most observers figured she would have until 2028 to polish her image and (assuming she and Biden were reelected) chalk up some distinctive accomplishments. Harris’s candidacy could get a big boost if Biden promoted her candidacy, but he might decide it’s more appropriate to stay out of the nominating process, much as Barack Obama did in the early stages of the 2016 primaries. Even with Biden’s active support, though, it’s unlikely Harris has the sort of political clout to preempt a challenge.

Furthermore, Harris might have to prove her appeal to Black voters. In 2020, Black voters strongly preferred Biden to Harris, ruining her efforts to pursue a strategy modeled on Obama’s in 2008. Would she do better with this crucial segment of the primary electorate in a second presidential campaign? It’s unclear, particularly if the “electability” concerns that helped boost Biden among Black and white voters alike turn out to be a millstone for Harris.

2020 candidates would flood the race.

In 2020, the Democratic primary field was the largest since the start of the modern primary system, and the many candidates who performed better than Harris would certainly be tempted to challenge her again.

Two progressive heavyweights, 81-year-old Bernie Sanders and 73-year-old Elizabeth Warren, probably retired their own presidential ambitions on the assumption that Biden would be the party’s candidate in 2024. But if he’s not in, they might consider running. In particular, the huge following Sanders built over two presidential campaigns might convince him to run again; he has pointedly not ruled out a bid if Biden isn’t in the field.

There are also younger 2020 candidates who envision themselves in the White House and may accelerate their plans given the surprising appearance of an “open” nomination contest and the uncertainty as to when the next “opening” might occur. For some reason, Pete Buttigieg is often the sole object of speculation on this possibility, but Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, and even Michael Bennet might go for the gold again.

The primary would attract plenty of fresh candidates, too.

The 2024 primary field could be even more crowded than it was four years earlier. There are several major Democratic officeholders thought to be waiting for the right moment to run for president. If Biden doesn’t run, that moment might arrive early for three governors: California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’s J.B. Pritzker, and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer. The first two governors have vast resources at their disposal, while the third checks an awful lot of boxes for Democrats valuing electability above all else.

The fight over the Democratic primary calendar would become red hot.

Right now, the Democratic National Committee’s Biden-driven bid to shake up the presidential primary calendar is a bit of an abstract proposition; it doesn’t really matter if Biden runs unopposed. If Biden isn’t the nominee, it will suddenly matter a great deal whether the primaries begin with South Carolina rather than New Hampshire, whether Iowa is excluded from the early states altogether, and whether Georgia or Michigan go third or fourth or fifth. In a late-developing open nomination contest, candidates may rise or fall based on how well they navigate the new calendar. So the DNC’s tentative decision to move ahead with a new order of states could suddenly become controversial and even disputed.

Democrats would fall right back into “disarray.”

Democrats are rightly proud of the unity they have been displaying in Congress lately in sharp contrast to the chaos and factionalism of the GOP.

But the relative ideological unity of the Democratic Party would by no means guarantee a peaceful nomination process if Biden retires. In primaries in which everyone is mostly aligned on the issues, candidates tend to differentiate themselves on personal matters, often leading to especially nasty battles. Warren’s demolition of billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 candidacy candidacy in just one debate could provide the template for 2024. And, ideology aside, a competitive contest could revive disagreements over race and gender at a time when the Democratic coalition couldn’t afford any self-inflicted wounds.

Costs could be high for Democrats.

A Biden retirement might air out some dirty Democratic laundry and help identify future talent, but it would come at a high price. The money and energy that would be siphoned off into what would almost certainly be a big fight involving a large field of candidates could be more usefully deployed on behalf of a Biden-Harris reelection campaign. Yes, there’s a risk in moving forward with an 80-year-old nominee who doesn’t excite Democratic voters. But it’s not as big a risk as distracting Democratic voters with the carnage of a primary fight while Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis waits to pick up the pieces and blast all Democrats to perdition.

 

As someone who has closely followed the law and politics of the abortion issue literally for decades, I am fascinated by what’s been happening to public opinion since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, and did an update on that subject at New York: 

During the near half-century in which the Supreme Court precedent of Roe v. Wade protected the right to choose abortion, public-opinion research on the topic tended to be of questionable value. Respondents were asked to categorize themselves as “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” depending on their subjective self-definitions. Polls asked people to engage in hair-splitting on the degree to which they wanted abortion to be legal or illegal. And the whole subject was overshadowed by the fundamental reality that political maneuvering on abortion policy had limited consequences for a majority of voters (though not for those who couldn’t access or afford abortion services).

With Roe gone, the basic laws governing reproductive decisions depend to an enormous extent on where one lives, and abortion policy is a central and urgent political decision (at least outside those few states that have re-enshrined abortion rights in state constitutions). So it’s getting easier for pollsters to weigh how the public feels about what should happen on abortion policy.

There’s already clear evidence that the abortion backlash had a tangible effect on the 2022 midterm elections and the underperformance of Republicans compared to historical precedents. But the effect on political preferences is ongoing.

The pro-choice majority that has always existed is now clearly being mobilized by what the Supreme Court and Republican state legislators and governors have wrought, as Gallup recently found:

“Americans are more dissatisfied with U.S. abortion policies now than they have been at any point in Gallup’s 23-year trend, and those who are dissatisfied are three times as likely to prefer less strict rather than more strict abortion laws.

“The record-high 69% of U.S. adults dissatisfied with abortion laws includes 46% who prefer that these laws be made less strict, marking a 16-percentage-point jump in this sentiment since January 2022. In addition, 15% of Americans are dissatisfied and favor stricter laws, and 8% are dissatisfied but want them to stay the same.”

The number of unhappy pro-choice respondents is striking for several subgroups:

“The percentage of women who are dissatisfied with U.S. abortion policies and support less strict laws has risen 18 points this year to 50%, compared with a 13-point increase among men to 41% over the past year. Both readings are the highest on record for those groups …

“For the first time in Gallup’s trend, pluralities of Catholic (38%) and Protestant (37%) Americans and a majority of those with no religious identity (69%) express dissatisfaction with abortion policies and a preference for less strict laws …

“Before 2022, dissatisfied Catholics and Protestants were typically more likely to favor stricter rather than less strict abortion laws.”

What do dissatisfied pro-choice Americans want to do about it? According to an NPR-Ipsos poll last month, they want to decide abortion policy themselves:

“Without a federal law in place, state abortion policies are shaped by lawsuits, state laws and constitutional amendments.

“A majority of Americans say they would like the decision to be in their hands, not elected officials. Nearly 7 in 10 of those surveyed say they would strongly or somewhat support their state using a ballot measure or voter referendum to decide abortion rights, if they had the option, rather than leaving the decision to state lawmakers.”

After pro-choice voters won all seven ballot tests in 2022, there’s a grim battle underway elsewhere to provide or deny voters a chance to weigh in on abortion in 2024. As NBC News reported late last year, the potential landscape for abortion ballot initiatives is quite broad:

“Activists are already planning citizen-led ballot initiatives that would enshrine abortion rights in the constitutions of 10 states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

“Those states all ban or restrict abortion, and it is also legal for citizens to initiate ballot proposals that amend the states’ constitutions.”

Given these realities, it’s unsurprising that the anti-abortion activists whose battle cry for decades was to let the people decide are now beginning to rely on right-wing judicial activists determined to ban abortion from the bench, or a bit down the road, a Republican trifecta in Washington willing to override the states and ban abortion nationally. The stakes for 2024 are rising steadily.

As a big fan of boring process issues, I have been watching the DNC engineer a major change in the presidential primary calendar, and explained it at New York:

Amid wails of distress from Iowa and New Hampshire, the Democratic National Committee has formally ratified a change in the party’s 2024 presidential primary calendar. Since 1976, Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire’s primary were the opening events of the Democratic nominating process; in 2008 they were joined by Nevada’s caucuses in the third position and South Carolina’s primary in the fourth. Under the new calendar, Iowa is out of the early going; South Carolina will move ahead of New Hampshire; and Georgia and Michigan will be added to the early “window” of states allowed to hold primaries before March. The new order of states was recommended by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee in December after a push from the White House. The DNC will give Georgia and New Hampshire until June to come up with a plan for their primaries that complies with the new calendar; in both cases, the state Democratic Party needs cooperation from Republican lawmakers to execute the changes and may or may not succeed.

It’s important to understand that Republicans plan to stick with their old calendar, as they can.  Indeed, back in April 2022, the Republican National Committee voted to lock in the traditional early-state order (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada) for 2024. And whatever the national parties decide, it’s state legislatures and parties that determine when primaries happen.

Odds are high that Democrats from Iowa and New Hampshire will hold unsanctioned 2024 contests. This will generate a lot of drama, but it probably won’t matter in this presidential cycle, assuming President Biden runs for renomination without significant opposition. The DNC has said it will revisit the calendar before the 2028 races, but it may signal an intention to preserve this year’s changes by placing heavy sanctions on states that go rogue (e.g., barring them from having delegations at the convention or sanctioning candidates that participate in unauthorized caucuses or primaries).

If, instead, national Democrats conclude that the 2024 reshuffling was just Biden’s way of rewarding the state that saved his bacon in the 2020 primaries (South Carolina) while punishing the states in which he finished fourth (Iowa) and fifth (New Hampshire), and making it even harder for anyone to challenge him, then all bets could be off for 2028. But displacing South Carolina from its new perch at the top of the calendar won’t be easy even with Biden having retired: As those who fought for so many years to displace Iowa can tell you, people will fight to stay No. 1.

The long-awaited first Republican challenger to Donald Trump for 2024 is apparently arriving shortly, and I wrote about her at New York:

Ever since Donald Trump formally announced a 2024 presidential comeback bid last November, the big question has been when, exactly, one of the large number of potential Republican rivals would jump into the turbulent waters with him. There were credible reports that potential candidates were afraid to draw Trump’s concentrated fire. But now the Charleston Post & Courier reports that Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, will take the plunge on February 15.

The timing of the Haley announcement is odd, coming right after a show of force by Trump in South Carolina. At his January 28 event in Columbia, he demonstrated his support from the state’s Republican governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, senior U.S. senator, and three U.S. House members. Perhaps Haley is just playing catch-up or is concerned about preempting a rival presidential bid by the junior U.S. senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott (whom she appointed to the Senate). The Dispatch’s David Drucker believes she actually relishes the prospect of a one-on-one fight with Trump in the early going:

“What better way to distinguish herself versus Trump, DeSantis, and anyone else, than by becoming the second declared candidate in the primary? The contrast is stark. Republican voters can choose between a white, male, soon-to-be 77-year-old defeated former president who has led the GOP to three consecutive electoral disappointments, or a nonwhite woman in her early 50s, born of immigrant parents, with conservative bona fides on most critical issues that are unassailable.”

Being the first official Trump challenger will definitely provide priceless advertising for Haley’s on-paper credentials. In addition to the qualities Drucker mentions, Haley has checked the foreign-policy-qualifications box via her service at the U.N., something Ron DeSantis can’t match. She has shown excellent political instincts over her lengthy career (she got massive positive publicity for removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House grounds long after it had become a low-risk endeavor). Most of all, she has excelled in the essential Republican art of staying on good terms with Trump without looking like his toady.

Indeed, Haley’s odd relationship with Trump may soon be in a bright spotlight. She has offended him on multiple occasions, first by endorsing “L’il Marco” Rubio in 2016 while criticizing Trump, then by unsubtly letting it be known while serving in his administration that she was an independent player, then by harshly attacking his conduct on January 6. You can add to her sins against the 45th president that she is now breaking a promise to back him in 2024 if he ran. Yet he’s never gone medieval on her, and he seems strangely affectionate toward her even now, according to the Post & Courier:

“During his weekend campaign swing that included a stop at the S.C. Statehouse, Trump told national reporters he recently received a phone call from Haley. Trump said Haley told him ‘she’d like to consider’ a 2024 run of her own.

“’I talked to her for a little while. I said, “Look, you know, go by your heart if you want to run,'” Trump told reporters, adding that he would welcome the competition.

“’She called me and said she’d like to consider it, and I said you should do it.’

“Trump then reportedly told Haley, ‘Go by your heart if you want to run.’”

It’s possible this last comment from Trump should be translated as “Go ahead! Make my day!,” suggesting that he is prepared to tear her a new one in the weeks and months ahead. Or maybe he’s simply not that worried about Haley compared to the bigger threat posed by DeSantis.

So what kind of threat to either of these men is Haley ’24? Yes, she is the sort of candidate that might have been thought up by central casting. Originally, she was a politician from the hard-core, Jim DeMint-Mark Sanford wing of the South Carolina GOP who fit the Tea Party mood like a glove. But then she gradually made herself into a national-media icon of what post-Trump Republicanism might look and sound like. To conservatives of every hue, she’s unimpeachable on cultural issues, unobjectionable on foreign policy, and especially distinguished in the evergreen hobby of union-hating (she anticipated DeSantis’s attacks on perfidious corporations back in 2014 by telling potential investors in her state that they could take their “union jobs” elsewhere).

Haley’s ultimate problem as a presidential candidate is that she’s from a crucial early primary state. As Tom Harkin (whose presidential candidacy in 1992 took Iowa right off the table) could tell her, you don’t get much credit for winning your home state. But if she loses South Carolina, her candidacy will be dead as a mackerel.

Haley’s other big challenge is to overcome the perception that she’s really running for vice-president. She has been regularly featured on veep lists for Trump (even back in the 2020 cycle, when there were reports that the then-president wanted to dump Mike Pence in favor of her). And there’s not much question that Republicans need help with women voters, having placed a woman on their national ticket only once. And maybe that is her goal, or at least an acceptable consolation prize; despite years of being treated as a Republican star, Haley is only 51. But she’d better not wind up looking too weak in her home state, or the largely superficial image she has built as a political world-beater could vanish like a rare snowfall in the Carolina sun.

The backlash to the Supreme Court’s abolition of federal constitutional abortion rights is having some interesting new consequences, as I explained this week at New York:

For decades, the Republican National Committee has staked out a hard-core anti-abortion position. So now that a Republican-controlled Supreme Court has abolished the federal constitutional right to an abortion, you’d figure the RNC would take a moment to relish its victory. But you’d be wrong.

Instead, the RNC is lashing out at apostates. In response to 2022 Republican candidates avoiding the topic of abortion and to signs of strife in the party’s alliance with the anti-abortion movement, the RNC has passed a resolution scolding its members and urging them to keep the faith. It concludes with marching orders:

“WHEREAS, The Democratic Party and its allies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the issue of abortion during the 2022 midterms, concealing their extremism while mischaracterizing and vilifying pro-life Republican candidates; and

“WHEREAS, Instead of fighting back and exposing Democratic extremism on abortion, many Republican candidates failed to remind Americans of our proud heritage of challenging slavery, segregation, and the forces eroding the family and the sanctity of human life, thereby allowing Democrats to define our longtime position; therefore, be it

“RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee urges all Republican pro-life candidates, consultants, and other national Republican Political Action Committees to remember this proud heritage, go on offense in the 2024 election cycle, and expose the Democrats’ extreme position of supporting abortion on-demand up until the moment of birth, paid for by the taxpayers, even supporting discriminatory abortions such as gender selection or when the child has been diagnosed with Down syndrome.”

In states where Republicans have the power to set abortion policy, the RNC doesn’t want any namby-pamby compromises allowing the majority of abortions to proceed (despite its characterization of Democrats as the real “extremists”):

“RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee urges Republican lawmakers in state legislatures and in Congress to pass the strongest pro-life legislation possible — such as laws that acknowledge the beating hearts and experiences of pain in the unborn — underscoring the new relics of barbarism the Democratic Party represents as we approach the 2024 cycle.”

If you aren’t familiar with the rhetorical stylings of the anti-abortion movement, the “relics of barbarism” business is an effort to tie legalized abortion to the slavery and polygamy condemned by the original Republicans of the 19th century (who would probably view today’s race-baiting GOP with a jaundiced eye). The “beating heart” reference is an endorsement of “heartbeat” bills banning abortion once fetal cardiac activity is detectable, roughly at six weeks of pregnancy or before many women even know they’re pregnant.

The resolution is really the announcement of a new hunt for RINOs on the topic of abortion. Some in the RNC worry that their politicians will become squishy on reproductive rights because their constituents (and many swing voters) don’t favor abortion bans and regret the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, as shown by 2022’s pro-choice winning streak on ballot measures and general Republican underperformance. This pushback by the RNC parallels the anti-abortion movement’s efforts to make extreme abortion positions (such as a national abortion ban) a litmus test in the 2024 Republican primaries, especially at the presidential level.

Will this counterattack stem the panicky retreat of Republican politicians who care more about winning elections and cutting taxes than “saving the babies,” as the anti-abortion activists would put it? I don’t know. But at this point, it’s another sign that the Dobbs decision wasn’t quite the clear-cut victory for the forced-birth lobby that it initially appeared to be.

 

Like most California political junkies, I’m already looking forward to a vibrant 2024 Senate race. I wrote up the latest development at New York:

In the conservative imagination, California is sort of an evil empire of leftism. It’s where white people have been relegated to a minority for decades; where tree-hugging hippies still frolic; where Hollywood and Big Tech work 24/7 to undermine sturdy American-folk virtues; where rampaging unions and arrogant bureaucrats make it too expensive for regular people to live.

But in truth California’s dominant Democratic Party has as many mild-mannered moderates as it does fiery progressives. One of them, Dianne Feinstein, has held a Senate seat for over 30 years. As the 89-year-old political icon moves toward an almost certain retirement in 2024 (though she now says she won’t announce her intention until next year), another ideological moderate has just announced a bid to succeed her. Los Angeles congressman Adam Schiff, though, has an asset most centrist Democrats (those not named Clinton or Biden, anyway) can’t claim: the rabid hatred of Donald Trump–loving Republicans, giving him the sort of partisan street cred even the most rigorous progressives might envy.

It’s why Schiff begins his 2024 Senate race with something of a strategic advantage. The first-announced candidate in the contest, Congresswoman Katie Porter (also from greater L.A.), is a progressive favorite and more or less Elizabeth Warren’s protégé as a vocal enemy of corporate malfeasance. Another of Schiff’s House colleagues, Oakland-based Barbara Lee, has told people she plans a Senate run as well; Lee is a lefty icon dating back to her lonely vote against the initial War on Terror authorization following September 11. And waiting in the wings is still another member of California’s House delegation, Silicon Valley–based Ro Khanna, who is closely associated with Bernie Sanders and his two presidential campaigns.

Obviously, in a Senate race featuring multiple progressives, the national-security-minded Schiff (who voted for the Iraq war authorization and the Patriot Act early in his House career) might have a distinct “lane,” particularly if he draws an endorsement from Feinstein. (Schiff is already suggesting his campaign has her “blessing.”) But he may poach some progressive votes as well by emphasizing the enemies he’s made. Indeed, his campaign’s first video is mostly a cavalcade of conservatives (especially Donald J. Trump) attacking him.

It’s probably not a coincidence that Schiff is announcing his Senate bid immediately following his expulsion from the House Intelligence Committee by Speaker Kevin McCarthy for his alleged misconduct in investigating Russia’s links with Trump and his campaign (and in making the case for Trump’s impeachment). Schiff was also a steady prosecutorial presence on the January 6 committee that McCarthy and most Republicans boycotted).

Complicating the contest immeasurably is California’s Top Two primary election system. Schiff and his Democratic rivals will not be battling for a party primary win but for a spot in the 2024 general election, given to the top two primary finishers regardless of party affiliation. The Golden State’s Republican Party is so weak that it might not be able to find a candidate able to make the top two in a Senate primary; two Democrats competed in two recent competitive Senate general elections in California (in 2016, when Kamala Harris defeated Loretta Sanchez, and in 2018, when Feinstein trounced Kevin DeLeon). If that’s the case, though, it’s unclear which Democrat might have the edge in attracting Republicans. Porter’s campaign is circulating a poll showing she’d beat Schiff in a hypothetical general election because Republicans really hate Schiff despite his more moderate voting record.

For all the uncertainties about the 2024 Senate field, it is clear that the two announced Democratic candidates will wage a close battle in one arena: campaign dollars. Both Schiff and Porter are legendary fundraisers, though Porter had to dip deeply into her stash of resources to fend off a tougher-than-expected Republican challenge last November. Big remaining questions are whether Lee can finance a viable race in this insanely expensive state with its many media markets, and whether Khanna, with his national Sanders connections and local Silicon Valley donor base, enters the contest. There are racial, gender, and geographical variables too: Until Harris became vice-president, California had long been represented by two Democratic woman from the Bay Area. With Los Angeles–based Alex Padilla now occupying Harris’s old seat, 2024 could produce a big power shift to the south and two male senators.

In any event, nobody is waiting around for Feinstein to make her retirement official before angling for her seat, which means a Senate race that won’t affect the partisan balance of the chamber at all (barring some wild Republican upset) will soak up a lot of attention and money for a long time. At this early point, Schiff’s positioning as the moderate that Republicans fear and despise looks sure to keep him in the spotlight.

It’s one of the more comical aspects of the deadly serious game of chicken that House Republicans are playing on the debt limit, but it’s worth pointing out, as I did at New York:

As the United States lurches toward a possible debt default thanks to House Republican hostage-taking on legislation needed to extend or suspend the debt limit, it’s increasingly evident that (as my colleague Jonathan Chait observed) the hostage-taker is strangely reluctant to name a ransom. Indeed, the initial Democratic strategy in this complicated chess game was simply to force House Republicans to say exactly what kind of spending cuts they propose to make in exchange for allowing a debt-limit measure to wobble its way to Joe Biden’s desk.

It’s easy to mock GOP lawmakers for the brainlessness, or maybe cowardice, of their effort to make Democrats identify the spending cuts their opponents want. The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell tans the elephant’s hide with considerable panache:

“Republicans have Very Serious budget demands. Unfortunately, they can’t identify what any of those demands are.

“They say they want to reduce deficits — but meanwhile have ruled out virtually every path for doing so (cuts to defense, cuts to entitlements, wiping out nondefense discretionary spending, or raising taxes). …

“Republicans say they want lower deficits — in fact, they have pledged to balance the budget (that is, no deficit at all) within seven or 10 years. But they have not laid out any plausible mathematical path for arriving at that destination. They promise to cut ‘wasteful spending’ … but can’t agree on what counts as ‘waste.’”

In so quickly reaching this predictable dead end in answering the world’s easiest math problem, Republicans have one plausible line of defense: It’s how much of the public feels about fiscal matters as well. They really don’t like deficits and (especially) debt. But they really don’t like the kind of spending cuts that Republicans are talking about either (tax increases, of course, are categorically off the table for the GOP and have been since the George H.W. Bush “Read my lips: No new taxes” debacle).

A September 2022 poll from the deficit scolds of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation found that Americans are up in arms about all the borrowing:

“A 31-month high of 83% of voters are urging the president and Congress to spend more time addressing the national debt, with the biggest jump among those under age 35 (8 points to 85%).

“More than eight-in-ten voters (81%) also said that their concern about the national debt has increased. Nearly three-in-four voters (74%) feel the national debt should be a top-three priority for the president and Congress, including 65% of Democrats, 74% of independents, and 86% of Republicans.”

From 40,000 feet, all that red ink looks pretty alarming, it seems. More recently, this very week, the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal found a majority of Americans stamping their feet about it:

“Most Americans oppose raising the federal debt ceiling without accompanying cuts to federal spending, a new RMG Research poll finds.

“Sixty-one percent of 1,000 registered voters in the survey said Congress should either raise the debt ceiling with spending cuts (45%) or refuse to raise the ceiling at all (16%). Only about a quarter (24%) said Congress should raise the ceiling without accompanying spending cuts.”

To House Republicans, the great symbol of runaway spending is the “monstrous” $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress in December. Many of them claimed during the fight over Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership bid that “the American people” were outraged by the measure despite the fact that it cleared the Senate, House, and White House. Perhaps they were thinking of a Twitter poll conducted by Elon Musk that showed that 75 percent of respondents opposed the omnibus bill.

The sad truth is, however, that the more specific you are in identifying items in one of those “monstrous” bills, the more support they command from the public. In 2021, Gallup published a summary of public-opinion research on what was then a $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Democratic budget-reconciliation proposal (soon whittled way down to $2.2 trillion and then to a net-negative figure in the ultimately enacted Inflation Reduction Act) and found that its provisions were very popular despite the debt they required:

“[S]everal recent polls … ask about the bill in a broad, umbrella fashion, and all find majority support. A Quinnipiac poll conducted July 27-Aug. 2 asked, ‘Do you support or oppose a $3.5 trillion spending bill on social programs such as child care, education, family tax breaks and expanding Medicare for seniors?’ and found 62% support, 32% opposition. A Monmouth University poll conducted July 21-26 asked about both the initial infrastructure bill and the new $3.5 trillion bill, describing the latter this way: ‘A plan to expand access to healthcare and child care, and provide paid leave and college tuition support.’ The results were similar to the Quinnipiac poll, with 63% in favor and 35% opposed …

“A progressive think tank, Data for Progress, conducted an online poll among likely voters July 30-Aug. 2, with a much more detailed 130-word description of the bill, including in the question wording a bulleted list of six specific proposals in the plan, the $3.5 trillion price tag and even a description of the ‘reconciliation’ procedure necessary to pass it. All of this (and the online mode, and the sample of likely voters as opposed to national adults) also didn’t seem to make much difference; 66% of likely voters in their sample supported the plan as described, while 26% opposed it — similar to the Quinnipiac and Monmouth results.”

So the minute you get into the particulars of Democratic-proposed spending bills, public concerns about debts and deficits tend to fade. And oh — there’s another problem for Republicans on the fiscal front: voters like the idea of higher taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for popular spending measures.

The lesson for Republicans is clear: Their crusade for fiscal discipline is popular, so long as it is very general and you exclude higher taxes on the rich as a possible solution. No wonder politicians like McCarthy want Democrats to be the ones who name the GOP’s price for letting the U.S. economy get through the year without calamity.

With all the attention being focused on the potential GOP presidential field for 2024, it’s looking like Joe Biden may run unopposed on the Democratic side, and at New York I compiled reasons why that’s a good thing.

The most dramatic development in 2024 presidential politics since the midterms hasn’t been Donald Trump’s official entry into the race or his loosening grip on the Republican Party (he’s still the GOP’s 2024 front-runner). It’s actually Joe Biden’s path to renomination suddenly clearing.

For much of the first half of 2021, there was anticipatory unhappiness with Biden among Democrats who figured his poor job-approval ratings would feed a huge Republican midterms wave. It did not, of course, turn out that way. Biden saw immediate benefits following Democrats’ better-than-expected midterms performance. Rather than triggering cries for his retirement, his 80th birthday on November 20 passed virtually without notice. And now any muttering about renominating Biden is muted. A few left-of-center commentators are massively overreacting to the developing scandal over classified documents turning up in the president’s Delaware garage. And, of course, there are still concerns about Biden’s age. But sources close to the president say he’s still planning to announce he’ll seek a second term “not long after” the State of the Union address on February 7. And unless a Democrat mounts a serious challenge very soon, which doesn’t seem very likely, he will quickly lock down the 2024 nomination while Republicans are still squabbling.

Although Biden isn’t universally beloved even among Democrats, his quiet renomination will be a good thing for the party in general, not just the president himself. Here’s why.

Incumbent presidents usually win reelection.

Trump lost his reelection bid, though by a much narrower margin than most objective observers expected. But the 44th, 43rd, 42nd, 40th, 37th, 36th, 34th, 33nd and 32nd presidents all won second terms. Since World War II began, only George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Trump served just one term — and Ford came very close to winning. Presidential incumbency doesn’t guarantee victory, but it’s undoubtedly a powerful asset.

There’s no consensus heir to Biden.

If Biden were to decide against pursuing a second term, his heir apparent would be Vice-President Kamala Harris. Her current level of popularity is low enough (a 40/53 job approval ratio) to encourage intraparty opposition, yet high enough to give her a decent chance. That means a contested nomination fight at a time when a head start against the GOP would be very helpful.

There is not, moreover, any consensus alternative to Harris, but there are some very ambitious Democrats who may jump at an opportunity to go for the big prize. These include 2020 retreads Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg; key-state governors Gavin Newsom of California, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois; and an assortment of dark horses. Progressives might insist on their own alternative to Harris, and they could look at long-time champion Bernie Sanders (who has not ruled out a third straight presidential campaign) and younger candidates like California Congressman Ro Khanna.

Whoever challenges Harris in a post-Biden scenario should be acutely aware of the risks of pushing aside the first Black woman — not to mention the first Asian American — to appear on a presidential ticket. If nothing else, the inevitable debate over that development will be a major, and perhaps turnout-depressing, distraction.

Without Biden, his party could fly apart.

As president, Biden has done a better-than-expected job of keeping Democrats (aside from the senatorial arch-heretics Manchin and Sinema) united. They remained united during the 2022 midterms, and House Democrats made a real impression staying unified behind Hakeem Jeffries during the 15-ballot Speaker’s election that displayed so much Republican ugliness.

Highly competitive 2024 presidential primaries could strain this hard-earned defiance of the “Democrats in disarray” meme. For starters, the fight over the very order of Democratic primaries could grow toxic if candidates perceive advantages in certain states going first. And without an incumbent president to paper over them, ideological disagreements on the future of the Democratic Party could quickly emerge.

With a divided federal government, Democrats don’t need a trendsetter.

It’s unlikely that Democrats will regain a governing trifecta anytime soon, so most of their presidential candidate’s 2024 agenda probably won’t be enacted. The Senate landscape in 2024 is terrible for Democrats. Winning back the House won’t be easy, either; 1954 was the last time House control flipped in consecutive elections, and 1952 was the last presidential election when House control changed.

In a period of divided government, having a president who can pay lip service to bipartisanship while using the limited powers he has to govern without Congress is probably the right combination.

Uncle Joe is a known commodity in another high-stakes election.

Ultimately, renominating Biden makes sense for the same reasons nominating him made sense in 2020. Taking a flier on a different candidate would be dangerous for Democrats, and for the country. While Democrats are very unlikely to win a trifecta in 2024, Republicans could do so quite easily with a presidential win, making their efforts to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; institute a national abortion ban; and install even more conservative judges much more feasible.

If and when Biden formally announces his candidacy for reelection, he should offer concrete evidence of his physical and mental fitness to endure four more years on the job, and express willingness to step aside if that’s no longer the case. That would reinforce his reputation as a regular Joe who loves his country more than he loves himself, unlike his predecessor and possible 2024 opponent. Democrats might imagine they could do better than offering voters a second Biden administration. But it’s a risky business.