A Republican operating to flip a aggressive California Home seat has an uncommon technique on abortion: Speak like a Clinton-era Democrat.
“I’m a pro-choice Republican that believes abortion needs to be protected, authorized and uncommon,” stated Matt Gunderson, the automobile dealership proprietor difficult Democratic Rep. Mike Levin in Southern California.
That place, a throwback to Democrats’ framing on abortion within the nineties, places Gunderson in a vanishingly small membership of Republicans who espouse help for abortion rights — and units him other than most GOP candidates who attempt to keep away from the subject altogether.
By voicing help for abortion — with limits — Gunderson seeks to place distance between himself and the extra vehement anti-abortion insurance policies superior by some in his social gathering, hoping to neutralize a difficulty that has price the GOP electorally ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned two years in the past. The end result of the race, and its potential to find out management of the Home, might affect how Republicans strategy abortion in future elections.
However Democrats, loath to surrender their benefit on a galvanizing electoral challenge, are fast to poke holes in Gunderson’s self-proclaimed help for abortion rights.
“The distinction is Invoice Clinton was truly pro-choice,” stated Levin, contrasting Gunderson with the president who popularized the “protected, authorized and uncommon” rhetoric — a phrase that has since been jettisoned by abortion rights advocates who see it as stigmatizing the process. “Invoice Clinton was truly supported by Deliberate Parenthood. Sadly, ‘pro-choice Republican’ is an oxymoron.”
Republicans in California discover themselves in an ungainly dance between their social gathering’s anti-abortion place and their state’s overwhelming help for entry. Earlier than the Dobbs ruling, seven GOP members from California — together with swing-seat occupants like Reps. Mike Garcia, Michelle Steel and David Valadao — backed a nationwide abortion ban that declared life started at conception. Now, simply two Californians (and none in aggressive races) co-sponsor an analogous invoice. Susceptible Republicans largely sidestep the query of a nationwide abortion ban by emphasizing the difficulty is now as much as the states, aligning with the needle-threading posture of former President Donald Trump.
The squabble over Gunderson’s stance displays how quickly the Supreme Courtroom’s Dobbs resolution shifted the boundaries of the abortion debate. Whereas red-state Republicans seized on the ruling to press sweeping restrictions, Democrats have tacked in the wrong way, placing their help for abortion extra front-and-center than ever earlier than and backing state and nationwide protections that transcend Roe. Now, abortion rights advocates say the old-school “protected, authorized and uncommon” formulation doesn’t cross muster.
“That isn’t sufficient, and it by no means was sufficient,” stated Jodi Hicks, president of Deliberate Parenthood California. “Roe v. Wade was all the time speculated to be the ground, not the ceiling of what we needs to be striving for.”
Whereas the nationwide GOP has largely tried to downplay the difficulty of abortion, few within the social gathering have gone to date to affirmatively state their help, as Gunderson does. GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine are notable outliers on the Hill, the place the overwhelming majority of Republicans are anti-abortion. However it might change into a political necessity for some in deep-blue territory; former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, for instance, has known as himself “pro-choice” as he runs for Senate as a Republican, a notable tack leftward after he had vetoed a invoice to increase abortion entry two years in the past.
In California, some GOP activists pushed to strip opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage from the state social gathering platform final fall, arguing these positions hamstring Republican candidates in purple districts. However the effort was sunk by social conservatives, an indication of how fervent the anti-abortion trigger stays among the many GOP base.
Nonetheless, bucking the social gathering trustworthy on abortion has political upside for a candidate like Gunderson, who’s operating in a blue-tinged district that crawls alongside the shoreline of south Orange and north San Diego counties. Whereas Democrats have solely a slim three-point registration benefit, the district voted for President Joe Biden by 11 factors.
Levin, who was first elected in the course of the Democratic wave of 2018, received reelection final yr by 5 factors. He relied closely on abortion as a marketing campaign message, hammering his then-opponent, Republican Brian Maryott, for cheering the Dobbs resolution.
Gunderson, making an attempt to keep away from an analogous destiny, has argued that he and Levin are virtually on equal footing on the difficulty, downplaying their variations as “nuances.”
Voters “can relaxation simple that essentially we have now an analogous place on this challenge,” he stated. As a substitute, he prompt voters base their resolution on different points resembling border safety, sometimes higher political territory for Republicans.
Rob Stutzman, a veteran GOP strategist primarily based in Sacramento, stated Gunderson’s place is sensible politics within the highly-educated, suburban district.
“For a Republican who’s coming from behind anyway in a district like that, it is sensible to wish to attempt to mitigate the abortion challenge,” he stated.
However Democrats and abortion-rights activists say Gunderson has undercut his “pro-choice” bona fides a number of methods. They query his said opposition to nationwide bans. And so they say Gunderson confirmed his true colours by refusing to help a 2022 poll measure which enshrined abortion rights within the state structure. The initiative handed overwhelmingly with 70 p.c of the vote statewide.
“Even within the district that he’s operating in for Congress, 61 p.c of the voters authorized to solidify entry to abortion within the state structure,” stated Robert Armenta, senior vice chairman of public affairs at Deliberate Parenthood of Orange County and San Bernardino. “He doesn’t mirror the desires of his voters.”
Gunderson stated Democrats are reaching by citing his opposition to the initiative, Proposition 1.
“They wish to nitpick the difficulty over Prop 1 two years in the past,” Gunderson stated, including that he supported California’s current abortion legislation on the time. He known as the initiative “an pointless proposition that opened up a Pandora’s field to late-term abortion and abortion demand. That’s an excessive place that most individuals should not snug with.” (Authorized consultants have disputed that interpretation.)
Gunderson’s help for abortion with some restrictions tracks with many who think about themselves “pro-choice.” A plurality of voters nationwide — 38 p.c — say abortion needs to be authorized typically, whereas 31 p.c imagine it ought to all the time be authorized, according to polling accomplished by KFF, a well being coverage analysis and information group.
Polling across the challenge illustrates why Gunderson and Levin are jockeying to assert the pro-abortion rights mantle. The post-Dobbs political panorama has galvanized voters round abortion. Voters describing themselves as “pro-choice” have been at file highs for the reason that resolution. And the difficulty has proven to be a potent motivator.
“The extra dramatic shift is who the abortion voter is and who cares about abortion as a voting challenge,” stated Audrey Kearney, a survey analyst with KFF. Citing Gallup information from 20 years in the past, she stated, “pro-life voters had been 3 times as more likely to describe themselves as single-issue abortion voters. Whereas now we’re discovering that the abortion voter is younger, Democratic, pro-choice.”
In California, nevertheless, Democrats haven’t constantly been in a position to capitalize on pro-abortion votes for his or her down poll candidates. Even when Prop 1 handed with historic ranges of help in 2022, Democrats didn’t unseat Republicans in swing congressional districts — an indication that some voters voted concurrently for abortion rights and GOP candidates within the Home.
Democrats try as soon as once more to middle abortion as a part of their 2024 marketing campaign technique, arguing the difficulty is way from settled. They are saying Republicans, in the event that they management Congress and the White Home, might impose a nationwide ban, block entry to medicine abortion and even prohibit sure forms of contraception.
Gunderson downplays that abortion could possibly be below risk in California, stating the difficulty is now determined within the state.
“Hopefully it permits us to deal with another points that actually matter on a day-to-day foundation, the place we are able to have some affect,” Gunderson stated.
Gunderson declines to weigh in on pending laws in Congress, resembling a pro-contraception invoice championed by Democrats. He says he’s in opposition to nationwide restrictions on abortion. However Democrats counter he has waffled on that dedication, pointing to a Q&A at a GOP donor assembly in January, the place, requested about federal ban, Gunderson stated “it is dependent upon the place you’re wanting on the timeline.” (He instructed POLITICO he didn’t recall these feedback however reiterated his place that he wouldn’t vote for a ban.)
He additionally dominated out voting to codify Roe v. Wade into federal legislation, making certain there are some protections for abortion nationwide.
“In the event you’re a believer in states rights, I feel you need to be constant,” Gunderson stated, arguing that what works in California doesn’t essentially work in different states, like his native Wisconsin. “We now have to just accept the Supreme Courtroom has dominated it’s a state’s rights challenge.”
Abortion rights advocates say these solutions present Gunderson’s “pro-choice” branding is nothing however false promoting.
“You both imagine in freedoms and rights otherwise you don’t,” stated Hicks, of Deliberate Parenthood. “And freedoms and rights shouldn’t cease at your ZIP code.”
