Abortion: We wondered shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned in late June if Democratic campaigns would continue to focus hard on abortion rights this cycle, and the answer is a resounding yes. Team Blue is airing new commercials in the races for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat and governor of Michigan that each use footage of the newly-minted Republican nominees, Blake Masters and Tudor Dixon, expressing extreme anti-choice views, while Team Blue has also kept up the offensive in other races across the country.
We’ll start in Arizona, where Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly quickly opens with clips of Masters proclaiming, “I think Roe v. Wade was wrong. It's always been wrong … It's a religious sacrifice to these people, I think it’s demonic.” The audience later hears the Republican argue, “The federal government needs to step in and say no state can permit abortion … You make it illegal and you punish the doctors.”
Kelly’s allies at Senate Majority PAC are also hammering Masters on abortion rights in a new $1.2 million ad campaign, though they’re adopting a different messaging strategy. The commercial stars a woman identified as Brianna who explains, “Three years ago, I had an ectopic pregnancy, and if I didn’t make it into the OR within a couple minutes, I was going to bleed out and die.” She continues, “But according to Blake Masters, that's just too bad. He wants to ban all abortions, even in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother.” Brianna ends by saying that if Masters had his way, her three children would have lost their mother.
Meanwhile in Michigan, a DGA-backed group called Put Michigan First makes use of a debate clip where Dixon answers in the negative when asked, “Are you for the exemptions for rape and incest?” The spot then plays footage of podcaster Charlie LeDuff asking the candidate, “The question would be like, a 14-year-old who, let's say, is a victim of abuse by an uncle, you're saying carry that?” Dixon responds, “Yeah, perfect example.” When Dixon is asked in an interview with MIRS if she’d provide an exception for “health of the mother,” she replies, “No exceptions.”
Over in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria’s commercial takes Republican state Sen. Jen Kiggans to task for celebrating when Roe was overturned. In Georgia, Democrat Stacey Abrams is airing a spot where several women warn that, under a law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, they could be “investigated and imprisoned for a miscarriage.”
And back in Arizona, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs proclaims she’ll “protect a woman's right to choose, fix our schools, and lower costs.” Other recent Hobbs ads also attack each of the GOP frontrunners, former TV news anchor Kari Lake and Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson, for opposing abortion rights. (Hobbs began airing her ads as Tuesday’s GOP primary was still too close to call.)
Republicans, by contrast, have been reluctant to discuss abortion at all in their general election commercials even before this week’s big defeat for anti-choice forces in Kansas. One notable exception came last month when Mark Ronchetti, who is Team Red’s nominee for governor of New Mexico, argued that his policy to restrict the procedure to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy was reasonable and that Democratic incumbent Michelle Lujan Grisham was "extreme” for supporting “abortion up to birth.”
Most Republicans, though, remain content to avoid the topic altogether. Masters, for his part, is spending at least $650,000 on an opening general election ad campaign starring his wife, who says he’s running because he loves the country and the state. (Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin points out that Masters just days ago was campaigning as a conservative border warrior who warned, “There’s a genocide happening in America.”) The RGA, meanwhile, is attacking Hobbs on border security―but not abortion.