Republicans saw yet another rebuke of their radical, regressive agenda Tuesday night as voters in key GOP states broke with the party on the issue of abortion — an inauspicious message for conservatives heading into the 2024 election cycle.
A year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe, voters in Ohio showed Republicans the issue is still top of mind by resoundingly approving an amendment to the state constitution to protect abortion access. In doing so, the Buckeye State joins Vermont and five other states that have voted to safeguard abortion rights since Roe was overturned.
To the east, in Virginia, abortion similarly mobilized Democrats, who retook control of the Legislature. In Kentucky, meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear secured a second term after he made abortion rights central to his campaign in the deep-red state.
With abortion, the GOP has hitched its elephant to a deeply unpopular issue. According to a nationwide Associated Press survey of more than 94,000 voters, “63% of voters in the 2022 midterm elections said abortion should be legal in most or all cases. About one-third of voters said it should be illegal in all or most cases.”
Even pro-life advocates see the writing on the wall. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, told the AP that Ohio’s results “serve as a warning sign for the GOP heading into 2024” and “proved this is not a formula for success.”
While Democrats enjoyed similar gains in last year’s midterm elections, calling it a blue wave feels naive. Democrats are good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and, with the general election still a year away, overconfidence could prove to be a fatal error. Let’s not forgot how many Democrats — and much of the media — underestimated Donald Trump in 2016. Nonetheless, it’s welcome news this week as recent polls show Trump with a slight lead over President Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2024 rematch.
Tuesday’s results are further proof that the GOP’s agenda is increasingly out of step with American voters. Perhaps agenda is too generous a term. At this point, the GOP platform feels like an aging rocker playing his greatest hits long after the audience has lost interest and left the venue.
That dearth of ideas was on display in Miami Wednesday during the latest debate of GOP presidential candidates, in which the party’s top contenders offered little more than Trump toadyism and personal attacks.
On abortion, only Nikki Haley, unlike the men onstage, seemed to recognize the same old message isn’t resonating with voters. Haley — who is seeing a bump in polls as of late — suggested her party forego a national ban for more achievable goals like a ban on late-term abortions, policies that encourage adoption and increased accessibility to contraceptives.
“Let’s focus on how to save as many babies as we can and support as many moms as we can and stop the judgment. We don’t need to divide America over this issue anymore,” she said.
But if Haley’s male counterparts were still playing the greatest hits, Haley offered little more than a riff on a classic, which as the AP pointed out, “might be popular among some suburban women, a group the GOP has struggled with during recent elections, but it’s decidedly out of step with many activists that make up the Republican base.”
While big Democratic wins in the in recent elections might have GOP strategists nervous heading into 2024, the bigger threat Republicans should be fearing is the wave of Gen Z voters showing up at polls and voting overwhelmingly to the left.
A report in The Atlantic from June made the stakes clear: “As many as 7 million to 9 million more members of the racially and culturally diverse Gen Z could cast ballots in 2024 than did in 2020, while the number of the predominantly white Baby Boomers and older generations voting may decline by a corresponding amount, according to nonpartisan forecasts. As a result, for the first time, Gen Z and Millennials combined could account for as many votes next year as the Baby Boomers and their elders — the groups that have made up a majority of voters for decades.”
Those fresh young voters might be a win for democracy, but it’s more bad news for Republicans: Research shows these young voters are more diverse, more educated and Democratic. (As we’re seeing with older millennials, they also stay Democrats as they age.) That’s unsurprising since the issues that motivate these generations — climate change and the environment, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights — are issues the GOP either ignores or is on the wrong side of, at least in the eyes of young voters.
The Atlantic also reported Gen Z — generally defined as people born between 1997 and 2012 — will increase its share of the electorate to 13% in next year, which depending on turnout, could translate to about 8 million more Gen Z voters turning up at polls, increasing the total to about 20 million. Combined with millennials, the two generations will make up about 37% of the electorate.
According to the report, “over the past four elections, Gen Z voters have broken heavily for Democrats in blue states, and provided the party solid margins in closely contested swing states. But in red states, with a few prominent exceptions … Gen Z voters are mostly supporting Republicans.”
In subsequent elections the millennial and Gen Z share of the electorate will only increase. Demographers project by 2028, baby boomers and their elders will comprise just shy of a third of voters nationwide, while Millennials and Gen Z will exceed two-fifths. By 2032, almost exactly half of all American voters will have been born after 1980.
Unless the GOP can fine-tune its message and talk about issues that matter to young voters, the party will continue its slide into national irrelevance. Republicans may be able to hold on to power at the state level in red states for the time being, but wins in Congress and the White House are going to become increasing elusive until they free themselves of Trump’s thrall and accept that sowing division, suppressing voters and promoting conspiracy theories are not paths to victory. Otherwise, the GOP will keep singing the blues.
