Will Abortion Really Push Suburban Women Away from the GOP in the Midterms?

CLAY: Now, politically we’ve talked a lot about the fact that when the Supreme Court decided to take these cases that they were likely to be taking the cases to start to take away, undercut Roe v. Wade. I thought, Buck, that they would uphold the Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks and that they would continue to kind of chip away at it. That’s what John Roberts, I believe, would have done.

Based on the Alito opinion which leaked, it appears they’re gonna do away with Roe v. Wade. So let’s take away the morality angle and everything else and just talk about the political angle. What does this do politically? Because we’re headed towards a red wave in 2022. And my belief is that there are a lot of middle-of-the-road suburban women who are furious over covid, and all the Democrat shutdowns and lockdowns — and we got an unbelievable clip from Randi Weingarten to reflect this.

Does this make their decisions more difficult? And in some of those states, in some of those states like Georgia where you’ve got Warnock who’s an incumbent going up against probably Herschel Walker, the primary’s coming up soon. In Arizona where you’ve got Mark Kelly who’s probably on the ropes, in Wisconsin where our friend Ron Johnson is running for reelection, in several — in New Hampshire where Maggie Hassan is really on the ropes.

I mean, we can run through all these different political markets. Does this have a substantial impact — or enough of an impact — to swing those elections? Because really the Democrats don’t have anything else to run on. So are they going to hammer this decision over and over and over again in an effort to try to mobilize suburban women? That’s my question.

BUCK: I don’t think it’s going to have a big effect, positive effect for the Democrats going into the midterms. I think there are too many imminent issues. Because, remember, what’s the pitch really as well? It’s going to be, “Put us in charge so we can pass a federal law to make abortion legal”? Okay. But anybody who understands how the system works, one, there will be challenges to a federal abortion law which will rely on the Interstate Commerce Clause, I suppose, and whether that’s too much of…

Remember the Violence Again Women Act, right? There are things that sometimes are too far even for the stretching of the Commerce Clause the Democrats engage in. But beyond that it would just mean that the Republicans the next time around could change the law or could rescind whatever the new legislation would be. And so with that I don’t think it really mobilizes that many people who would not be interested in voting against voting against Republicans or voting for Democrats anyway. I don’t see it having that much of an impact. And I think when you look at how it will galvanize many people on the right who have been working… You know, they’ve been working toward this moment for a long time, right?

CLAY: Decades.

BUCK: For decades. And now if you talk to anybody in the pro-life movement, their vision of this isn’t, “Oh, this is victory.” It’s, “Now we’re really in the fight,” right, “now we’re really in the fight in a way that we’re not having our hands tied behind our backs by this 1973 decision.” So I think… Basically what I’m saying, Clay, is I think it will kind of cancel out in terms of the pure politics of this; therefore, it doesn’t really move the overall needle for Democrats in a meaningful way. That’s my sense of how this goes, especially because if you live in California, if you live in New York, if you live in New Jersey, Massachusetts, the law is not gonna change.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Whatever the law currently is on abortion will be the same.

CLAY: If anything, actually, we could have more open, right?

BUCK: The law isn’t gonna change. What I mean is your abortion regime will not change ’cause obviously the law will change from a federal perspective.

CLAY: I’m intrigued to see what happens, purely from a political perspective. This decision coming out in 2023, I think, probably would have benefited Republicans because we’ve been arguing about what is the argument the Democrats make? What argument do they make, right? And Biden is such a disaster that I really don’t think he has any argument based on what he’s done. And so now the argument is gonna to be — and we’ll play Elizabeth Warren here for you in a moment. Now the argument, Buck, is going to be, “Look at what they’re going to take from you.” That’s the new argument I think for the Democrats in the midterms.

BUCK: But yet… Like, let’s think about who is the voter for whom this is such an important issue that it also outranks, outstrips the price of gas, high inflation, wide open borders, crime in major cities.

CLAY: That’s why I said suburban women.

BUCK: Right. It’s really probably suburban single women more so than suburban moms. There are a lot of —

CLAY: Just single women in general, because I do think there’s a lot… But yes.

BUCK: We have… It’s funny, we got research about this. We have a lot of suburban moms listen to this show. Not as many single suburban single women, from what I understand.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: But there are certainly plenty. Talk about demographic information.

CLAY: No, no, I’m just… As a married guy for 20 years, like, if we had incredible appeal for single women, I would be blown away. The demos, you’re right. We have a huge suburban mom audience that is listening. And the reason why I’m talking about this is, when the suburban mom community goes out to dinner, right, or goes out for wine, which happens frequently, so I’m told, and they’re all sitting around…

I’ll give you an example, Buck. I was out in Vegas for the March Madness, right? I went out to dinner with a bunch of women who absolutely love Trump, absolutely love him. Now, these are actually single women — my wife was there, too, by the way — and all of them were all in on Trump and they just were not infatuated with the idea of the Supreme Court coming out with an abortion ruling. They’re still going to vote for Republicans.

They still would vote for Trump; they’re still gonna vote Republican. But I do think that the Republican Party doesn’t talk necessarily to them. There are women who are maybe not all-in on pro-choice, but they are certainly more open to the idea of abortion being legal in some circumstances. And I don’t think you want to alienate those people by allowing Democrats to say, “Oh, we’re going to then take the next step and try to take away your right to…” which they’re gonna do.

BUCK: Of course.

CLAY: They’re gonna argue, we’re gonna take away your birth control right, we’re gonna take away everything associated with reproduction.

BUCK: The only political test run that I can think of for this in the recent past would be, as you recall, the effort to block Kavanaugh, which really, this is a continuation, this fight is a continuation of that process. In the effort to block Kavanaugh, they thought, “We will go all out and be a shrill and vicious…” I said at the time, it turned a lot of people — I claimed this for myself — into a more wartime conservative mentality in the sense that these people will do anything.

I mean, they will say, these left-wing activists and Democrat power brokers will do absolutely anything to maintain power. They have no principles or scruples whatsoever. That was what the Kavanaugh hearing showed me. But I bring it up, Clay, just because I think the Democrats really believed that this was gonna save the Senate for them and there was a lot of mobilization. I think it backfired and actually cost them Senate control. And you may see, depending on how this shakes out in the next couple months, you could see a similar phenomenon where they just go too far and seem too crazy.

CLAY: Well, it’s a great example for me. In Tennessee, that’s when Marsha Blackburn got elected. She was in what was at least at the time considered to be a real battle with Phil Bredesen, who was a really popular elected Democrat governor, former mayor of Nashville who had done a good job, and a lot of people… I came out publicly and said I’m backing Marsha Blackburn in ’18.

You know, it was still kind of supposed to be a tight race because I said I can’t support in any way any Democrat in the Senate after watching the Kavanaugh hearings. And I think there are a lot of people like me who helped and, you know, certainly had that response.

BUCK: There are two sides to that whole War on Women concept that the Democrats roll out. You know, it’s not a one-way battle, and I would just say, people sometimes criticize me a little bit on the “Why don’t you…?” Why aren’t I more critical of Lindsey Graham, and I will just admit this ’cause there are things that I disagree with the senator on pretty strongly. I will never forget and always give credit for.

CLAY: He was amazing there.

BUCK: He stood up. When we needed somebody to stand up and get it done in the Senate, Senator Graham, I give him a lot of credit for that. He stood up and got it done.

CLAY: He was — and that was, I think, his finest hour —

BUCK: Definitely.

CLAY: — that speech that he gave.

BUCK: The best moment of his career, I would argue.

CLAY: Best moment of his career. I don’t think there’s any doubt.