Trump wades into the abortion wars – it will not go well for him

The former president is winning the messaging war on immigration. But he’s giving Democrats a way to run against him

On Thursday, former president Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden made dueling appearances at the US-Mexico border. As much as Biden wanted to play political jiu-jitsu and attack Trump for killing last month’s bipartisan agreement that would have swapped restrictions to immigration for aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, his trip tacitly admitted that Trump has won the messaging war on immigration, as polling shows.

The fact few people are even taking about relief for undocumented immigrants or work permits shows just how far away discussions about immigration reform have gone since the days when Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice president – and how little policy has changed given how many migrants were deported, which is why immigrant rights activists called Obama “deporter-in-chief.”

But during an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump waded into talking about abortion. He specifically mentioned “I haven’t agreed to any number, I’m going to see,” before adding that “we want to take an issue that was very polarising and get it settled and solved, so everybody can be happy.”

Trump’s words show a shift in his rhetoric about abortion. Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, Trump has bragged about nominating Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, claiming that he thereby made the Dobbs v Jackson decision that took away the right to an abortion that Roe enshrined.

But so far, Trump has refrained from endorsing actual policy decisions. Indeed, he and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis clashed about DeSantis signing a six-week abortion ban. While his former vice president Mike Pence came out in support of a 15-week abortion ban during his presidential campaign, Trump did not echo the calls. Rather, he said the decision brought abortion “back into the states.”

Trump has largely stayed away from going into specifics on abortion because he considers it, as he said, “very polarising,” but also, it’s fairly clear it does not animate him the way immigration does. A former Democrat from New York, he is clearly not fluent in the language of evangelical conservatives who set aside their reservations about a thrice-married casino owner who does not go to church in hopes he would facilitate the death of Roe.

Indeed, in 2016, social conservatives blasted him for saying that women who seek abortions should be punished, since anti-abortion conservatives claim that they want to protect the women who seek abortions while prosecuting those who provide abortions – and Trump gave away the game.

This time, Trump couched his language carefully to say that he does not support any specific number, likely as a way to push back on a New York Times report that he supports a 16-week ban. The trial balloon is likely a means for Trump to see what he thinks voters would find acceptable.

It likely will backfire. Now, Democrats can credibly claim that Trump will put in place a nationwide abortion ban that will affect everyone, including in blue states that have put in place provisions to protect abortion rights. Indeed, last year, Tina Smith, the Minnesota Democrat who is the only senator to have worked at a Planned Parenthood, told me that Republicans would put in place a national abortion ban if they took back the White House.

But Democrats could only speculate. Now, they can use Trump’s own words and say he is considering banning abortion. The midterm elections and off-year elections showed the potency of protecting abortion rights. Every ballot initiative to restrict abortion rights – even in bright red states like Kansas, Montana and Kentucky – has failed. Conversely, every initiative to protect abortion rights – not just in blue states like California and Vermont but also purple states like Michigan and red states like Ohio – has passed.

Similarly, Democrats overperformed in what should have been a calamitous midterm for them in 2022, flipped a seat in Alaska that Republicans held for almost half a century, and not only protected their Senate majority, but flipped one extra seat in Pennsylvania. Last year, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear won re-election in Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky largely by campaigning to protect abortion rights.

Republican attempts to find a middle way on abortion have failed. Last year, Virginia’s Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who won a state Biden won by double digits in 2021, campaigned on a 15-week abortion ban, which he tried to sell as a reasonable compromise. The effort failed and Democrats flipped the house of delegates and held the state senate.

This does not guarantee that Trump will lose, to be clear. Biden is still incredibly unpopular and immigration will likely still be top of mind for many voters, along with the economy. But it may have given Democrats a coherent message to argue against another Trump term.