Alienating the Base

Written by Erick Erickson

In the real world, no nationwide abortion ban is going to pass Congress, so Donald Trump will never have the opportunity to veto it. As a practical matter, concerns from pro-life activists amount to nothing because nothing is going to happen at the federal level. But for Trump and JD Vance, how they have improvised answers to the concerns of pro-life voters could hurt them more than help them. At the local level, the pro-life movement is on defense and losing every state that puts the matter up to a public vote.

A lot of pro-life activists have worked for a very long time to eradicate abortion. At a time they are on defense, the presidential candidate they are backing turning his back on them too feels raw and feels like a betrayal for them. Trump claiming women “and their reproductive rights” will benefit from his administration is not reassuring language to pro-life voters, even after their big win ending Roe v. Wade.

Trump supporters bullying these concerned pro-life voters, mocking them, scoffing or yelling that they’re only helping Kamala Harris is not really a way to get them to support Trump.

Concurrently, if Trump were to have stood with these voters and, tomorrow, announced he supported an assault weapons ban and limits on magazine capacity for handguns, many of those now jeering the pro-lifers would be the ones denouncing Trump and saying they will not vote for him. Likewise, it would be the pro-life activists insisting that would be a vote for Harris and that Trump is still better than Harris on Second Amendment issues.

Single-issue voters are part of coalition politics in both parties. Smart political campaigns communicate in ways that distance themselves from the single-issue voter without alienating them. But Trump is a blunt object — a nuke instead of a precision-guided missile. He is not capable of that.

Trump supporters now attacking the pro-life activists would be more productive pointing out that a national ban is not going to make it through Congress. However, Trump’s control of the regulatory state could still help pro-life activists in ways Harris could undermine them. Trump, in fact, could and would pardon those arrested and jailed for praying at abortion clinics. Harris would not. That should matter to pro-life activists.

Coalition politics matters. In the past few years, the right and left have both gotten more comfortable trying to bully people into supporting candidates and claiming people owe their votes to candidates. The practical reality is that there is not a binary choice. Voters can choose not to vote or can vote for a third party. While committed supporters of either presidential candidate might not be able to fathom people refusing to vote for their candidate, it is a thing.

In Georgia, in 2020, whether one believes Trump lost or had the election stolen, over 30,000 voters showed up on Election Day and voted in other races but refused to vote in the presidential race. Joe Biden won the state by less than 12,000 votes. But those prone to claim not voting would get Harris elected should remember the same arguments were made in 2016, and Trump got elected, not Hillary Clinton.

This is easier to consider when you are not emotionally invested in a candidate. Most voters are not emotionally invested in a candidate’s success and want a reason to vote for that candidate. Bullying the voters is not persuasive.

If Trump loses in 2024, part of his loss will be because he alienated voters he needed, and screaming about a stolen election will not change that. There are certainly ways to signal to pro-life voters that Trump believes it should be a state issue without burning bridges. Pardoning those who went to prison for praying at abortion clinics would be one way to remind those voters that there really are differences between the two sides that matter in the real world. Emphasizing regulatory control is another.

Trying to change the message in the middle of a campaign through improvisation will end badly. Right now, both sides are doing that, and the one that does it the most will alienate the most voters and lose.

Erick Erickson is the Editor-in-Chief of RedState.com, the most widely read right-of-center blog on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Prior to leading RedState, Erickson practiced law for six years and oversaw a number of political campaigns at the federal, state and local levels.

Erickson earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, majoring in History and Political Science. He earned his juris doctorate at Mercer’s Walter F. George School of Law. He and his family reside outside the beltway in Macon, Georgia, where he is a former Macon city councilman. Follow him on X: @ewerickson.