WASHINGTON – All of Louisiana’s announced gubernatorial candidates say they are “pro-life.” Most say the big questions about abortion legality have finally been settled and therefore won’t play a big role in this fall’s election.
While there probably won’t be a robust debate about dismantling Louisiana’s near-total ban on the procedure, there is likely to be a passionate discussion of the details.
Candidate Richard Nelson, the Republican state representative of Mandeville, for example, says he plans to ask his opponents in the upcoming debate where they stand on the lack of exceptions to the blanket ban on abortion, even when a pregnancy results from rape or incest. .
“Hopefully, the moderator will ask. But if not, I definitely will,” Nelson said Tuesday. “It’s an issue that differentiates my campaign from theirs.”
Democratic candidate Shawn Wilson of Lafayette says while abortion isn’t the top issue on the campaign trail, it’s near the top.
One reason, Wilson surmises, is that because he’s a Democrat and African-American, many voters simply assume he’s pro-abortion. In fact, he is personally “pro-life,” he said, but believes the procedure should be a choice made by the woman and her doctor rather than by politicians.
In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortions no longer had national protections, people have begun to question what an outright ban really means, Wilson said. “Women are starting to see that the trigger laws we have now are extreme, and often put women in an untenable position,” she said.
It is still a main topic
Although Louisiana voters are among the most pro-life in the country, abortion remains the dominant wedge issue in American politics. He promises to be front and center in the 2024 presidential and congressional elections.
Nationally, Republicans must navigate between a base that wants the maximum restrictions on the procedure, especially in states where it is now widely accessible, and more moderate members who often represent suburban areas where voters want fewer restrictions.
For decades, with the right to abortion guaranteed by the US Supreme Court, the two sides were locked in a bitter but mostly academic dispute over the matter. Republicans had a straight anti-abortion stance, which they called “pro-life.” National Democrats often call themselves “pro-choice,” saying they support a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body.
After the Dobbs decision of the high courtthe details suddenly became much more important, with abortion access largely left to the states for now.
In Louisiana, 60 percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment banning the procedure in 2020. But candidates for state and congressional seats must now contend with the simultaneous reality that polls show that 70 percent of Louisiana voters the state now supports some exceptions, such as rape and incest.
Most of the candidates are following the advice of political strategists to remain anti-abortion and avoid the issue of exceptions, which could energize a small group of pro-life conservatives who vote on the issue.
“If you have to define your position, you can’t dwell on this issue, that’s more important than labels,” said John Couvillon, a political strategist and pollster in Baton Rouge. “If you favor exceptions, which is an overwhelmingly popular position, then you should continue to say so, if asked. But bear in mind that taking that position would likely motivate a vocal portion of the electorate.”
Avoiding individuals
Louisiana’s congressional delegation appears to have heeded this advice.
When asked directly about the rape and incest exceptions, Louisiana’s two senators, both Republicans, and four of the five GOP representatives said they opposed abortion but did not address the exceptions. (Lafayette Rep. Clay Higgins did not respond. Rep. Troy Carter, the lone Democrat in the delegation, said he is “pro-choice.”)
Among the gubernatorial candidates, Attorney General Jeff Landry said he supported the Legislature, which in May killed two bills seeking rape and incest exceptions.
Hunter Lundy, who is running without a party affiliation, opposes the exceptions. State Treasurer John Schroder and former business lobbyist Stephen Waguespack, both Republicans, did not respond to inquiries, but Waguespack told The Illuminator that he is against the exceptions.
Slidell Republican Sen. Sharon Hewitt, the only woman in the race so far, would say only that the Legislature rejected the exception bills.
“I haven’t seen the issue come up in the campaign, at least right now,” said Benjamin Clapper, director of Louisiana Right to Life. which opposes exceptions. The lack of talk is a bit of a letdown for him, he said, because the campaign would allow the candidates to better educate the public about what Louisiana law does and doesn’t do.
If Wilson were to run against a Republican candidate, Clapper added, abortion could become a major campaign issue.
“It’s definitely going to be an issue,” said Michelle Erenberg, executive director of LIFT Louisiana, a New Orleans-based organization that advocates for reproductive rights.
LIFT Louisiana commissioned a poll on how voters viewed the details of the abortion ban
LIFT specifically hired Couvillion, a Republican-leaning strategist, to conduct a poll for them. Released in April, it showed 73% of voters think abortions should be available when a doctor deems it necessary to protect the patient’s health, and 70% support an exception for rape cases and incest LSU’s annual poll showed similar results.
LIFT also polled several legislative districts and found that most voters who identified as pro-life also supported exemptions, Erenberg said. “Republicans are underestimating the galvanizing impact of the Dobbs decision and how quickly Louisiana moved to a full ban,” he added.
“It’s not their voters”
For lawmakers, the issue has not been widely discussed during the campaign, said Rep. Rick Edmonds, a Baton Rouge Republican who voted against the exceptions in committee.
He says most of the questions he’s received are about adoption and other services. He is running for state Senate in a Baton Rouge district that supported Donald Trump for president twice.
Many of his constituents never thought they would see an abortion ban in their lifetime, he said, and they are still working out what this new world looks like.
“People are still very interested in what happened and how it happened. That’s what most of the questions have been about,” Edmonds said.
In the liberal New Orleans district represented by Democrat Mandie Landry, much of the conversation is about Louisiana’s new abortion restrictions. He believes most GOP legislative candidates support rape and incest exemptions as well as a less restrictive framework for doctors. (Currently, doctors can face jail time for providing abortions that are not warranted by law.)
“It’s not their voters,” Landry said of Republican lawmakers’ reluctance to bring back the law. “It’s the interest groups and their money. They are afraid of being primary.”
Nationally, the Dobbs ruling, and GOP-led moves in several states to restrict the procedure in the months since, have Mobilized Democrats arguing that extremists are endangering individual rights for a long time.
Republicans so far do not have a unified position. Its presidential candidates are all over the map, with party members debating whether to seek a national ban and, if so, where to draw the line with restrictions.
Shifts come as a June Gallup poll shows that 69% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy.
Galvanizing the voters
Politically, Democrats’ more straightforward messaging was at least partially responsible for the outcome of the midterm elections, which ended with Democrats picking up a seat in the Senate to retain their majority and Republicans in the U.S. House moving from a “red tide” predicted to a razor. – Fine majority.
The Cook Report, a respected political handicapper, found that attitude changes among women voters played a key role in the outcome of the midterms. Cook found that Republican candidates who had championed an all-or-nothing approach, which had served them well in the past, were more vulnerable.
A continued abortion conflict will have national consequences in 2024.
The Democratic majority in the US Senate is vulnerable because the party needs to defend 23 seats, while Republicans have only 10 incumbents up for re-election.
All 435 seats in the US House, in which Republicans hold a 10-seat majority, are up for re-election.
In his February State of the Union address, President Joe Biden put abortion on the table for the 2024 election. He criticized states that “are enforcing extreme abortion bans” and pledged to veto any national ban passed by Congress.
Lionel Rainey, a Baton Rouge-based Republican strategist who advises 20 candidates in Louisiana and across the country, said the issue plays out differently in different states. Oregon is not Louisiana, and being labeled “pro-life” in that state, regardless of positions on deadlines and exceptions, could be an immediate disqualifier, regardless of how voters feel about the candidates’ strengths, he said. to say.
He recommends that his Oregon clients say that “pro-life” is a personal belief, while stressing that the Supreme Court has made abortion a state issue that is therefore beyond its reach.
“We’re advising against making abortion a campaign issue. Look at jobs, rising costs at the grocery store and gas pumps, whatever the pain points are for a particular state, focus -go there,” Rainey said. “We need to turn the conversation back to inflation and higher costs.”
