The problem of catering to activists, Republican edition
On Tuesday, the Democratic-aligned candidate won a decisive victory over the Republican-aligned candidate in the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Democrats now have a clear majority for the first time in decades. Republicans have had a majority since 2008 and prior to that it was mixed, but largely Republican and conservative. Combined with a Republican legislature and governor for eight years, Wisconsin took a big rightward turn in the 2010s. That could be starting to reverse as the new supreme court may strike down the heavily gerrymandered congressional and legislative maps along with other Republican-passed legislation.
Traditionally, state supreme court races are sleepy affairs. In Wisconsin, they are nominally non-partisan and only recently have gotten a lot of attention. The same has been true in other states. The race in Wisconsin was the most expensive state supreme court race ever. The total amount spent is not entirely clear, but it is easily in the tens of millions.
Why spend so much money on a race that usually gets little attention? More than anything else, the legality of abortion was on the line. Wisconsin has a law banning abortion from 1849 that opponents want to have struck down. The candidate aligned with Democrats was clearly pro-choice while the other candidate was clearly not. There were other reasons, too, for the heavy spending, but abortion was the biggest factor by far. With abortion largely being a state-by-state issue, you can expect to see many more expensive state supreme court races in the future.
Since Roe v Wade was reversed last year, the politics of abortion have done a 180. Democrats spent decades playing defense while Republicans were on offense. Now, it is the opposite.[i] Democrats are the ones talking about abortion non-stop while Republicans are avoiding it like the plague. Both of them have positions on abortion that are not popular overall, but total bans are less popular than abortion on demand. As long as Republicans continue to push for draconian bans, they will be on defense outside of the reddest states.
I have written before about what I think are the most significant problems both parties have. For Democrats, one of those problems is a significant chunk of party elites mistaking professional activists and the most left-wing faction (usually the same people) as being representative of all voters. Although the most left-wing faction of the party is a small minority, it is very overrepresented in some elite circles, i.e., media, academia and advocacy groups. It has a large microphone and punches well above its weight. Because of the disproportionate amount of attention it gets and the amount of time party officials spend around its adherents, some of them have a tendency to forget that it is a small number of people.
The problem with catering to the most left-wing faction of the party is twofold. The first is that, by definition, since it is the most left-wing faction, its stances on issues will be to the left of almost everyone. Ideas like abolishing private health insurance, open borders, banning fracking and calling oneself a socialist are popular with that crowd. With most everyone else, none of those things are popular. Catering to that crowd means going to the left of most everyone else and being out of touch.
The second problem is that it has different interests and priorities than everyone else. Those who make up the most left-wing faction are the most educated and have the highest incomes of all the groups making up the Democratic Party coalition. Someone who is gainfully employed and doing well financially is going to have a different set of concerns than someone who is struggling or worried about struggling. The former is less likely to be worried about economic issues and will instead be more concerned with cultural issues. The former is also less likely to be affected by crime and so doesn’t view it with the same urgency that others do.
The dangers of mistaking activists for voters were on display during the presidential primary in 2019 and 2020. Biden and a few others notwithstanding, most of the candidates running spent almost the entire campaign trying to outflank each other on the left. For the most left-wing faction, revolution was in the air. It was time to burn everything down. The system was broken and needed to be torn apart. Not only did candidates advocate for things like abolishing private health insurance and decriminalizing border crossings (unpopular), but they also spent time talking about reparations, busing and pronouns (irrelevant). Many candidates who could have been effective made themselves all but unelectable just to cater to a small number of people.
At best, that was a waste of time. Countless hours were spent discussing things that very few people were interested in and were never going to happen. Otherwise, it helped to elevate unpopular ideas. In the end, the right candidate was nominated, but the process of getting there was terrible. One candidate after another did everything they could to make Trump look like the reasonable one. It is not something any Democrat who cares about winning should want to see happen again.
Although the problem of catering to unrepresentative activists is a big one for Democrats, Republicans are hardly immune to it. On abortion, they are guilty of that same thing and are in a terrible spot because of it. While the activist wing of the Democratic Party is a small group and fairly new, the anti-abortion crowd is much bigger and is a major force in Republican politics and has been for decades. Abortion is what brought in socially conservative voters to the Republican Party beginning in the 1970s. It helped contribute to the rise of the religious right probably more than any other issue.
Catering to the anti-abortion crowd has been a staple of Republican politics on almost all levels since the Reagan years. The primary goal of the anti-abortion crowd for decades was to get rid of Roe v Wade. Having finally succeeded at it, they are not going to suddenly moderate. A movement that succeeds at a long sought goal never does that. It is only natural to want to keep pushing for more and more after winning.
Since Roe v Wade was reversed last summer, there have been multiple races in competitive states and districts centering around abortion and Democrats have won a good majority of them. A ballot initiative to protect abortion rights passed in Michigan while ballot initiatives to limit it failed in Kansas and Kentucky. It was very clear what the stakes were for abortion in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race and the pro-choice candidate won easily.
The Republican position of banning abortion, especially in the first trimester, is unpopular. It is a loser in swing states, as Wisconsin and Michigan have shown. It is an issue that many people care about and will vote on. Candidates who are seen as advocating for draconian bans put themselves at a big disadvantage.
The problem for Republicans is their activists will not allow for any moderation. That is why, despite what happened in Wisconsin and elsewhere, they are plowing ahead with more bans on the state level. I don’t blame the activists for not wanting to moderate. They spent decades fighting to reverse Roe v Wade and would see it as a slap in the face if Republicans supported allowing a huge majority of abortions to remain legal. That doesn’t change the fact that what they want is unpopular with most everyone else.
Making matters even worse for Republicans is that a huge majority of their elected officials come from solidly red states and districts. If they tried to moderate on abortion they could lose their next primary. While Democratic primary voters tend to be a pragmatic bunch, Republican primary voters tend to be much more militant and value fighting above all else. That is part of why the anti-abortion crowd has much more sway in the Republican Party than the most left-wing faction has in the Democratic Party.
If Republicans did adopt the position that abortion should be legal during the first 12-15 weeks with limited exceptions after that it would be a smart move. That is where most people are. Not only will Republicans not do that, but even if they tried they don’t have credibility on it.
Simply put, Republicans are not trusted on abortion. If they came out today saying it should be legal up to 12-15 weeks, almost nobody would believe that was their true position. Even if some Republican elected officials promised to support legal abortion up to 12-15 weeks, the anti-abortion crowd would still be pushing for bans and would have many elected officials on their side. The threat of a primary challenge would always be hanging over the head of anyone thinking about moderating their position.
The abortion referendum in Kansas last year was a great example of that lack of credibility. One of the messages the people pushing for a “yes” vote (no right to abortion in the state constitution) used was to emphasize that the referendum, if it passed, wouldn’t ban abortion. That was technically true. The problem is that nobody bought it because it was very clear what the Republican-dominate state legislature was going to do had it passed. Many state legislators were openly saying they were going to ban abortion altogether if given the chance.
Another example of Republicans’ lack of credibility concerns Ron DeSantis. Last year, he signed a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks. Now, he is poised to sign a bill banning it after 6 weeks. That is before most women know they are pregnant. Had he stopped at 15 weeks it would have been a smart move, but the anti-abortion crowd would never support him for president. People have to believe that Republicans will stop at 12-15 weeks and that they will not encroach any further. The case of DeSantis, in a solidly pro-choice state no less, is good evidence that they can’t be trusted on that.
As I mentioned earlier, the position on abortion that many Democrats have of supporting it on demand at any time is not popular. Because Republicans lack credibility on abortion, Democrats can get away with it. Many Republican candidates tried last year to counter attacks on their support for draconian bans by saying Democrats supported abortion on demand, but those efforts fell flat. When push comes to shove, most people are more worried about something they support being banned than something they oppose being allowed.
Eventually, I think Democrats will have to moderate on abortion. But Republicans will have to do it first and will have to be trusted on it. That is not going to happen any time soon. With the Republican presidential primary coming up, the incentives will be to cater to the most hardline opponents of abortion. There will be pressure from the anti-abortion crowd to push for a national abortion ban. There will be pressure to outlaw abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Cracking down on abortion pills will be another area where candidates will be expected to say what they will do.
Mike Pence has already come out in favor of a national ban. How many other candidates will embrace that position is unclear now, but surely some will if for no other reason than to get attention. Abortion will be undoubtedly be talked about plenty during the primary campaign and unpopular positions will get lots of airtime. Just as Democrats ran into problems catering to their activists in 2019 and 2020, Republicans are facing the same danger. They will almost certainly wind up giving Democrats plenty of ammunition to use against whoever the nominee is.
While Democrats, especially the most left-wing faction, can be out of touch on some cultural issues, none of those issues compare to abortion when it comes to salience. For example, most people don’t share the views on transgender athletes associated with the most left-wing faction of the party. The problem for Republicans is that almost nobody votes on that issue. Abortion is a completely different story. Abortion is a concrete, substantive issue that millions of people care about and vote on. Transgender athletes, gender affirming care, DEI and critical race theory are not.
If Republicans think they can neutralize their abortion stance by discussing other culture war issues, they will be sorely disappointed. Many Republican candidates tried that last year and lost. They are facing an agonizing dilemma where a passionate and substantial part of their base wants something they have spent decades fighting for, but most everyone else opposes it. That is not something they can make go away by talking about the latest culture war fight of the hour.
The go-to response for most people facing a situation where something they are pushing for is unpopular is to say they need better messaging. That is convenient because it doesn’t require changing any substantive positions, but it can be true as long as the problem they have is a messaging one. If the problem they have is substantive, no amount of messaging can fix it. Most people want abortion to be legal for the first 12-15 weeks. The Republican position is that it should not be legal during that time. Their substantive position is unpopular, period. No messaging is going to get around that.
When the problem someone is facing is substantive, they have two choices. One is to change their position so it is more in line with where most others are. The other is to not change their position and risk losing. An unpopular substantive position may not be a problem if the issue is not something people vote on, but abortion is not that at all.
I’m not suggesting Republicans will never win a competitive election as long as their position on abortion is unpopular. There are other issues that people vote on. Last year, there were Republican governors who signed draconian abortion bans and still won. If the economy falls off a cliff or some other kind of major event happens between now and November 2024 that will be a bigger issue than abortion or anything else. Still, abortion is a major issue and will continue to be one for a long time. The current Republican position is unpopular and their candidates will be at a big disadvantage on it outside of the reddest states.
[i] Yesterday, a judge in Texas ruled that the FDA wrongly approved the use of mifepristone, one of two pills used for medication abortions. At the same time, another judge in Washington ruled that the FDA can’t rescind the approval of mifepristone, contradicting the judge in Texas. We will see how this all plays out. I’m hard pressed to think it will stand and I think this whole episode is a good commentary on why judges shouldn’t be allowed to issue nationwide stays and why the federal judiciary needs to be changed, but that is for another blog post.