How Many Democrats Will Win Seats Because Of The GOP Anti-Choice Jihad?

Not likely to vote Republican this cycle

I don't usually turn to Charlie Cook for words of wisdom, but after the sheer nonsense I read the other day from Jeremy Peters at the New York Times-- Republicans’ Messaging on Abortion Puts Democrats on the Defensive, any palliative will do. Peters, obviously drunk or on crack, wrote that the their brilliant anti-Choice messaging is a 2020 winner for the GOP. No, really, he wrote whole column on that. "The unusually forceful, carefully coordinated campaign has created challenges that Democrats did not expect as they struggle to combat misinformation and thwart further efforts to undercut access to abortion. And advocates of abortion rights fear it is succeeding in pressuring lawmakers in more conservative states to pass severe new restrictions, as Alabama did this week by approving a bill that would essentially outlaw the procedure... Much to the distress of abortion rights supporters, their own polling is showing that the right’s message is penetrating beyond the social conservatives who make up a large part of the Republican base. Surveys conducted for progressive groups in recent weeks found that more than half of Americans were aware of the “infanticide” claims that President Trump and his party have started making when describing abortions that occur later in pregnancy." Peters is a fool... and wrong.

Cook, on the other hand, sees the GOP anti-Choice insanity as leading to a possible Democratic takeover of the Senate, something that has looked impossible for 2020 until Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, et al decided to end abortion in their states. "[T]he Senate 'should' be reasonably safe for Republicans in 2020 and," he wrote, "for now, it is. While there are 22 GOP seats up compared to 12 seats for Democrats, none of them are behind enemy lines in solidly blue states. Not a single Republican seat up in 2020 is nearly as endangered as five Democratic seats up last year. Sure, Sen. Susan Collins is seeking reelection in Maine, which Hillary Clinton won by 3 points in 2016, and Sen. Cory Gardner is up in Colorado, which Clinton carried by 4.9 points, but these are hardly vertical cliffs. Four more Republicans in states that President Trump won by single digits—Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas—all have to be careful, but none are exactly the walking wounded." Cook has that right. Even if the Democrats hold their House majority and win the presidency-- they would still have to deal with an intransigent McTurtle in 2021.

Put it this way: No Republican senator is in the same hemisphere of vulnerability as Democratic Sen. Doug Jones is in Alabama. Even if Republicans in the Yellowhammer State are crazy enough to nominate former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore again, now that allegations of Moore’s interest in underage girls is “old news,” it is questionable whether in a presidential year Jones could even beat him. This is not a knock on Jones, but being a Democrat defending a statewide office in Alabama in a presidential year is a real challenge.

It sure seemed last year that things couldn’t get much worse for Republicans in many suburbs. Democrats’ majority-makers came straight out of suburbs around Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, and Oklahoma City, along with four districts in Orange County, California and elsewhere. Many of the gains came not from career politicians moving up the traditional ladder of elected offices, but from outside of politics, with 10 coming out of either military or intelligence-community backgrounds, unencumbered by much of the ideological baggage and voting records that kept Democrats from winning in recent years and decades in much of the South and border south. But as bad as it was last year in suburban districts for the GOP, there are still more that they could lose, perhaps if a better Democratic challenger is in place or if the seat becomes open.

And Republican-controlled states enacting laws that effectively ban all abortions threatens to make a bad situation worse for Republicans in many suburbs. This is not to make a moral, ethical, or legal statement, just a political one. A third of the electorate, at most, supports measures this aggressive. It’s been said that Americans are antiabortion and pro-choice. Most don’t like the idea of abortion-- many believe there should be some limits and are extremely uncomfortable with late-term abortions-- but still take a very dim view of outlawing all or almost all abortions, given the many different circumstances that might lead a woman to contemplate one.

President Trump is a heavy enough lift with many college-educated, suburban, white women. The perception of overwhelmingly male state legislatures telling women what they can and can’t do in very absolute terms is highly problematic.

There was a time when the decisions to set up court tests of abortion laws were made carefully by antiabortion lawyers and strategists on the national level, picking cases very carefully to maximize their chances of victory. Today the decision-making is both decentralized and organic, and apparently by tone-deaf people who seem to oblivious of the consequences to their cause. When the Rev. Pat Robertson thinks an antiabortion measure goes too far, there is a fair chance it’s too far. There isn’t a pro-choice bone in Robertson’s body, but the Yale Law School class of 1955 graduate knows a bad case when he sees one.

This is all a long way of saying that while the Republican majority in the Senate probably shouldn’t be in much danger, if one were going to construct a scenario in which Democrats reach a 50-seat majority (with a White House win) or 51 (without one), an uncompromising assault on legal abortion would likely be an element of it.

Republicans lost a bunch of suburban districts last year. With actions like these, we may find out how many more there are to lose.

It's official: Charlie Cook is smarter than Jeremy Peters. Let's move along as long as we're talking the GOP ceding the suburbs-- and an even greater share of independent voters than they gave to the Democrats in 2018-- and take a quick glimpse at the House. Leave out-- for the sake of argument-- the willful incompetence of the DCCC and the fact that the damage the DCCC does to the Democratic efforts normally will be even greater with the unfathomably bad leadership of moron Blue Dog Cheri Bustos. The Democrats are in a position to take even more Republican-held seats in 2020 than the 40-some-odd ones they won in 2018. If Cheri Bustos were to disappear tomorrow and be replaced with someone competent-- say Ted Lieu for example, who showed what he could do in California as DCCC regional vice chair for the West Coast-- the party would be on the way to win not another 40 seats but as many as 50 seats.

Bustos is all about playing a defensive game, hoping to protect hopeless cases like Blue Dogs Kendra Horn (Oklahoma), Ben McAdams (Utah) and Joe Cunningham (South Carolina). She's going to waste over $10 million trying to protect those 3 losers, who have voted with the GOP on crucial issues more than with the Democrats. Meanwhile, she's running around recruiting horrible conservatives to run against progressives who have built strong campaigns. Good examples of progressives Bustos is knifing in the back include Kara Eastman (NE-02) and Mike Siegel (TX-10). You can contribute to their campaigns by clicking on the Blue America thermometer on the right. Bustos is killing their ability to raise money and putting up weak candidates who won't be able to win. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was a paid employee of the NRCC. They could hardly do any better than she's already doing for them.

Anyway, if Bustos were to disappear, the Democrats would have a better than even shot at these 50 GOP-held House seats, especially because of Republicans efforts to end women's choice (next to the name of the incumbent, is percentage of the vote that incumbent won with in 2018):

• Alaska- Don Young- 53.3%
• AR-02- French Hill- 52.1%
• CA-01- Doug LaMalfa- 54.9%
• CA-04- Tom McClintock-54.1%
• CA-22- Devin Nunes- 52.7%
• CA-50- Duncan Hunter- 51.8%
• CO-03- Scott Tipton- 51.7%
• FL-15- Ross Spano- 53.0%
• FL-16- Vern Buchanan- 54.6%
• FL-18- Brian Mast- 54.3%
• GA-07- Rob Woodall- 50.1%
• IL-12- Mike Bost- 51.8%
• IL-13- Rodney Davis- 50.5%
• IN-02- Jackie Walorski- 54.8%
• IA-04- Steve King- 50.4%
• KS-02- Steve Watkins- 48.1%
• KY-06- Andy Barr- 51.0%
• MI-03- Justin Amash- 54.4%
• MI-06- Fred Upton- 50.2%
• MI-07- Tim Walberg- 53.8%
• MN-01- Jim Hagedorn- 50.2%
• MN-08- Peter Stauber- 50.8%
• MO-02- Ann Wagner- 51.3%
• Montana- Greg Gianforte- 50.9%
• NE-02- Don Bacon- 51.0%
• NY-01- Lee Zeldin- 52.5%
• NY-02- Peter King- 53.3%
• NY-24- John Katko- 53.1%
• NY-27- Chris Collins- 49.4%
• NC-02- George Holding- 51.4%
• NC-09- ?
• NC-13- Ted Budd- 51.6%
• OH-01- Steve Chabot- 51.8%
• OH-12- Troy Balderson- 51.6%
• PA-01- Brian Fitzpatrick- 51.3%
• PA-10- Scott Perry- 51.4%
• PA-16- Mike Kelly- 51.5%
• TX-02- Dan Crenshaw- 52.9%
• TX-03- Van Taylor- 54.3%
• TX-06- Ron Wright- 53.1%
• TX-10- Michael McCaul- 51.1%
• TX-21- Chip Roy- 50.3%
• TX-22- Pete Olson- 51.4%
• TX-23- Will Hurd- 49.2%
• TX-24- Kenny Marchant- 50.7%
• TX-25- Roger Williams- 53.6%
• TX-31- John Carter- 50.6%
• VA-05- Denver Riggleman- 53.3%
• WA-03- Jaime Herrera Beutler- 52.9%
• WI-01- Bryan Steil- 54.6%

Fly in the ointment?

Note: Bustos was forced by enraged and overwhelming public opinion to cancel her Chicago fundraising event for anti-Choice zealot and fellow-Blue Dog Dan Lipinski. Lipinski then went on an embarrassing tirade, accusing Democrats of being "intolerant." That from a congressman who is the most anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant bigot in the Democratic caucus! Intolerant of intolerance? Ro Khanna (D-CA) has contributed a $1,000 from his own reelection campaign to help Marie Newman replace Bustos ally Lipinski. You can help Newman as well at that Blue America thermometer above-- or by clicking on this link. If you're excited about electing a transformative president-- basically either Bernie or Elizabeth Warren (or-- please God-- a ticket with them both), then it's essential we have a Congress supportive of a transformative agenda, not Blue Dogs, not New Dems and not any Cheri Bustos recruits.