CNN
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North Carolina Republicans prevailed this week when they passed a controversial abortion ban. Democrats are now rushing to undo it.
The decision by the state’s GOP legislative supermajority to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the measure raised the stakes for next year’s election and gave Democrats new impetus to invest up and down the North Carolina vote.
At the top of the ticket, President Joe Biden’s campaign is already making plans to focus on the ban, which bans most abortions after 12 weeks, in its bid to win a state last captured by a Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. Former President Donald Trump’s 2020 victory there was his narrowest in the election, and North Carolina is critical to any Republican’s path to the White House.
Shock waves from the brief but ferocious anti-abortion fight — 12 days that saw the bill pass, be vetoed by Cooper, then resurrected by Republican lawmakers — are also expected to ripple through races in the next year for governor, state attorney general and both houses of the legislature. With Cooper’s term limited, the campaign to succeed him is expected to be the most competitive gubernatorial race of 2024, possibly pitting far-right GOP Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson against Cooper’s protégé and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein.
The race to succeed Cooper, who for years has pushed the Republican agenda in North Carolina with his veto pen, will be especially intense if Robinson wins the Republican nomination. Democrats are already highlighting his absence from the legislature during abortion votes, arguing that he is trying to distance himself from the ban. The Republican had tried to avoid commenting publicly on the issue in recent weeks – a reversal of his usual stance – although he he told a conservative radio host the day after Republicans overrode Cooper’s veto that North Carolina continued to “move the ball” on abortion.
A CNN review of the Lt. Governor’s previous comments makes his feelings on abortion clear. He once told a crowd that “those people who think abortion, for convenience, is the right answer, have minds as reprehensible as the slave owners on the plantations.” Robinson posted on Facebook in 2019 that then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is “pushing the satanic agenda of child sacrifice through abortion claiming to advance women’s ‘rights'” and, in a In a separate Facebook Live conversation, he compared liberals to Nazis by saying, “The biggest way you see that is in their contempt, for life in the womb that they don’t even consider to be life.”
Robinson has also said that the word abortion itself is “sanitizing” and removes the “blood stain” from the procedure, and speaking of birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger and her contemporaries, said: “I wouldn’t be shocked not a bit if they were. not satanists, involved in witchcraft”.
Beyond the governor’s race, Democrats are now increasingly confident they will replace Stein with one of their own, and despite the prospect of even more deeply rigged maps, they have a chance to end the GOP’s state House supermajority .
Biden advisers were telling donors and top supporters that the Tarheel State was up for grabs even before it was clear the anti-abortion measure would be voted on. Now, as Biden prepares to make abortion rights a central issue of his re-election campaign, an adviser to the president told CNN that North Carolina is “a place that will strengthen and create another messaging opportunity clear about what is at stake.”
Meanwhile, several Republican presidential candidates support a more restrictive approach to abortion than North Carolina: Former Vice President Mike Pence supports a total ban, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis enacted a state law to ban most abortions after six weeks and, from various charges. Trump has taken, all including support for broad restrictions.
“I told him (Biden) we’re going to win North Carolina,” Cooper said in an interview. “The fact that President Trump is now claiming credit for all the laws that have passed in every state because of his U.S. Supreme Court appointees will make a real difference in November. … It will help us elect a Democratic governor, and I think he will help us break the supermajority in the legislature.”
Cooper and other Democrats have been quick to highlight sensitive comments from North Carolina Republican leaders about future plans to further restrict abortion rights. Pressed on the issue before the state House’s override vote this week, state Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger pushed back.
“This is where we are. I don’t see us going anywhere else,” Berger said. “Who knows who will be in the General Assembly after the next election?”
Cooper told CNN he believes Republicans will push for tougher laws if they win more power next year.
“The fires are fueled by 2024,” he said. “I think (Republicans) tried to avoid it because of the stealthy nature of how they approached this, writing it behind closed doors and passing it in 42 hours and then overriding the veto almost as soon as they got it back from the governor’s office. That’s because they wanted as few people as possible to see their dirty work.”
Stein is currently unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Robinson must go through a GOP primary field that includes state Treasurer Dale Folwell and former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, who is expected to announce his candidacy Saturday. But regardless of the results next year, the new abortion law will be in effect in North Carolina. And with state Republicans expected to draw more favorable legislative maps after a court decision last month cleared the way for new lines, Republican supermajorities in the state legislature could grow, limiting the power of any governor to make changes to the law, whatever it is. the rhetoric in the campaign.
In an interview with CNN, Stein acknowledged that his power to influence abortion law as governor would be limited if state Republicans retain their majority. But he also warned that picking a Republican for the job would lead to an even more restrictive ban, either at six weeks or outright.
“There is a majority within the Republican caucus that wants to ban abortion,” Stein said. “But there isn’t a supermajority of Republicans who do.”
Berger effectively confirmed that point earlier this week, when he described the new law as a “compromise” and said some members may “want to push it more on the restrictive side.”
As attorney general, Stein has already been active in litigation to preserve access to medication abortion in the state, as part of proceedings related to the broader national legal fight. But Stein said he has already instructed his staff to review the new ban and look for ways it could violate the state or the U.S. Constitution.
The law is expected to come into effect at the beginning of July. Democrats and abortion rights advocates in the state House chamber for the override vote could only boo the result, some chanting “shame” as they were led out by the police.
On the floor, Democratic state Rep. Abe Jones issued a policy warning.
“Relax, the whirlwind is coming,” he told his Republican colleagues.
“When Democrats talk about abortion, we’re winning. And when Republicans talk about it, they lose,” state Sen. Sydney Batch told CNN. “They expect the women of North Carolina and the people of North Carolina to forget by July of next year or November of next year We will not leave them.”
Berger doubted Democrats would take advantage of any backlash against electoral gains in 2024.
“I don’t know that they’re going to have any more energy or funding for the abortion lobby than they did last year. And we saw what happened,” Berger said, noting that Republicans picked up seats in the state legislature in 2022.
Those results, especially given Democratic legislative gains in states across the country last year, and the likelihood of even friendlier GOP maps continue to vex party officials in North Carolina and those focused on state races .
“I think the Democratic Party is playing catch-up,” said Gabrielle Chew of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which helps elect Democrats to the state legislature. “Now they’re understanding that this is an important piece of the puzzle. And if we’re going to be strategic about making sure that we’re winning elections so that we can advance the policies that our communities want to see, we have to include state legislators in that.”
Chew said Biden’s planned investment in the state would create a virtuous circle that would benefit the DLCC and the president.
“These moments allow not only the DLCC to raise funds so we can put more resources on the ground, but they also help the president when he starts traveling and comes to these states,” Chew said.
The North Carolina Democratic Party, now under new leadership in the form of 25-year-old activist Anderson Clayton, is already naming its GOP legislative targets.
Clayton, in a statement after the override vote, accused state Sen. Michael Lee and state Reps. John Bradford, Ted Davis and Tricia Cotham of screwing and betraying their constituents. Cotham, elected as a Democrat and an advocate for abortion rights, recently switched parties and voted in favor of the ban.
“In 2024, North Carolina Democrats will make sure all voters know where their leaders stand on this issue,” Clayton said, “and will continue to fight to elect candidates who stand up for reproductive freedom in North Carolina.”
