After Kansas Defeat: Will Republican Hardliners Flip On Abortion To Survive???

Grownups realize that politicos have to adapt or die.

Accordingly . . . Here's a sign that the abortion debate might be quickly evolving . . .

With midterm elections approaching, abortion has also served as a prime motivator for female voters across the country, especially among Democrats, and driving striking special-election successes for the party seeking to hold both houses of Congress.

According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, 56% of voters say that the issue of abortion will be “very important” to them at the polls this fall, marking a significant increase from 43% in March.

Additionally, an increasing number of states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are seeing growing gender gaps among new registrants since the supreme court’s Dobbs decision, according to the Democratic data services firm TargetSmart.

As a result, Republicans are increasingly recognizing that the issue of abortion could cost them dearly at the polls as they attempt to gain control of the House and Senate.

The difficulty of shifting from gung-ho anti-abortion rhetoric to a more complicated reality for a lot of Republicans was starkly illustrated by Kansas’s referendum. The usually reliably Republican state voted to keep abortion protections in its state constitution, thus providing an unprecedented boost in red state America to the abortion rights movement.

“The vote earlier this summer in Kansas is a wakeup call to Republicans that not only are the most extreme abortion restrictions non-starters with voters but the whole issue has flipped as a Democratic motivation to head to the polls,” Republican strategist Barrett Marson told the Guardian.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com links . . .

'A wakeup call': more Republicans are softening staunch anti-abortion stance

A growing number of Republicans are changing their positions on abortions since the fall of Roe v Wade as midterm elections approach in the US, signaling a softened shift from their previously staunch anti-abortion stances.

How the Invisible Army of Abortion Rights Voters Can Crush Republicans' Majority Dreams

What does all this mean? Well, nobody wants to speak too confidently about the Democrats' chances in November. We all know that the incumbent party tends to lose 25 or so seats in a first-term midterm election. And there's still inflation to worry about, though in recent weeks it's seemed to be receding, with gas prices well down from their mid-summer highs.

Why Republicans Keep Failing To Pass Abortion Bans

Republican legislators have been waiting for years to ban abortion. But now that their moment is here, they can't agree about what to do with it. The latest round of this drama just played out in the South Carolina Legislature, where Republicans spent two weeks debating a full ban on abortion in the state - only to deadlock on the details.

Abortions, now illegal in Missouri, rose last year for the first time in more than a decade

Abortions in Missouri increased last year, a new state report says, the first such uptick in more than a decade. The Department of Health and Senior Services' annual vital statistics report, finalized Friday and provided to the News-Leader, shows that at least 3,639 Missouri residents received abortions in 2021, up from 3,391 in 2020, during the final full year the procedure was legal in the state.

GOP nominee for Kansas governor tries to flip abortion issue

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) - The Republican candidate for Kansas governor tried Saturday to make the Democratic incumbent's support for abortion rights a political liability, even with a strong statewide vote last month in favor of preserving access to abortion.

You decide . . .