Analysis: As GOP primary season nears, will pro-lifers embrace Trump or hold out for a new hero?

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Some pro-life activists have listed winning the White House next year among their post-Roe goals, but the 2024 Republican primary is off to a slow start, with lingering questions about how candidates will address the issue of abortion.

Thus far, the only declared Republican candidate in the field is former President Donald Trump, who announced his third bid for the White House last fall. Trump is held in high esteem by some pro-life voters for nominating the Supreme Court justices who would go on to overturn Roe, while others have criticized his rhetoric on the issue or other controversies surrounding him as detrimental to their cause.

But for those pro-life activists looking for a Republican challenger to President Joe Biden, another political alliance with Trump may prove uneasier than their previous one, as the former president has taken steps to distance himself from the issue since the reversal of Roe.

In a social media post in January, Trump appeared to blame abortion and pro-life voters for Republicans’ poor midterm performance, writing that “the abortion issue” hurt the party’s prospects as pro-life voters “just plain disappeared.”

Asked about Trump’s comments in an interview with OSV News Jan. 21 at the March for Life, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said, “It makes it harder, there’s no question it makes it harder.”

“I think he’s making an enormous mistake,” Dannenfelser said of Trump, while arguing that his legacy shows he “has been loyal and true and an advocate of the pro-life cause.”

Dannenfelser argued the pro-life movement didn’t work to overturn Roe to “just go away and die,” and she believes Trump will see that.

“That is not his spirit, he is not somebody who slinks away from the battle; he’s somebody who leans into it,” Dannenfelser said. “I think eventually he’ll figure out what he wants to do and then he’ll do it.”

Dannenfelser said she thinks Trump will embrace the pro-life cause again as a candidate, but if he does not, it could create an “opening” for pro-lifers to support another candidate. Dannenfelser argued the pro-life movement will seek someone who embraces a “federal minimum standard” for restrictions on abortion.

“We can’t get it done without a strong advocate in the Oval Office,” she said.

As an ex-president, Trump has largely maintained his political grip on the GOP and his own base, according to recent polling. However, a potential rival may break through as the primary process gets underway.

Former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley recently indicated she intends to run but has not yet formally announced a bid.

Others seen as likely Republican candidates, but who have not yet announced their intentions, include Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is Catholic, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

In many previous election cycles, the presidential race would be well underway following the holiday season after the midterms. For instance, as of late January 2019, while Trump was still in office, multiple Democratic candidates, including future Vice President Kamala Harris, had either announced their campaigns for president or formed exploratory committees. The future President Biden announced his 2020 candidacy for the White House in a social media video posted April 25, 2019, in what was seen at the time as a delayed entry.

If Trump’s third bid for the Republican nomination proves successful, it would set up a rematch between the ex-president and Biden, a Catholic who defeated Trump in 2020. Biden has not yet formally announced his candidacy for 2024, but he is widely expected to seek a second term. Biden has adopted a platform of advancing legal abortion as president, and has condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The Dobbs decision in June 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade’s half-century of prior rulings by the high court making abortion access a constitutional right. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research firm for the abortion industry, 21 states have abortion bans or restrictions on the books that are no longer blocked by Roe, although some are tied up in legal challenges.

However, in the months following the ruling, voters in six states either rejected ballot measures meant to restrict abortion or voted to codify measures protecting it.

The November 2022 election also proved a lackluster one for the GOP, with the party winning just a razor-thin House majority. Some Republicans, including Trump, sought to blame the issue of abortion for Republicans’ poorer-than-expected performance, while others have pointed to campaign quality issues among Trump’s endorsed candidates, or his unfounded claims of a stolen 2020 election.

Without a clear field of rivals, and with the first ballots in the race still nearly a year away, it remains to be seen how the issue of abortion will factor into the Republican primary. But some early indications are that Republican-leaning pro-life activists may be open to an alternative to Trump.

Shortly after the March for Life in Washington, Students for Life released a straw poll of its student activists at a conference in the nation’s capital, showing a majority of them favor DeSantis at 53.73 percent, followed by Trump at 19.22 percent, Pence at 7.84 percent, Haley at 1.57 percent, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 1.37 percent. A handful of other potential Republican candidates including Govs. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia garnered less than 1 percent each.

Limited to attendees of the National Pro-Life Summit, the straw poll is not reflective of the general electorate or even necessarily the wider Republican base. It does, however, offer a glimpse of the views of student pro-life activists, a group Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins called “the first Post-Roe Generation.”

“The youth vote is now one-third of the electorate, and for the first Post-Roe Generation, expectations are high that candidates will compete to show their commitment to protecting life in law and in service,” Hawkins said in a statement. “Pro-life voters are looking for a passionate defense of mother and child and a commitment to act. A throwaway line in a speech will not cut it with the Pro-Life Generation.”

With Biden expected to seek a second term, the prospect of a competitive Democratic primary is unlikely. But Harris, Biden’s running mate, campaigned on the issue of abortion in DeSantis’ proverbial backyard, holding a pro-choice rally in Tallahassee, Florida, in January.

During remarks Jan. 22, the date that would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe, Harris took a thinly veiled swipe at DeSantis, who has described Florida as “freedom’s vanguard.”

“Can we truly be free if so-called leaders claim to be ‘on the vanguard of freedom’ while they dare to restrict the rights of the American people and attack the very foundations of freedom?” Harris said.

Republican candidates will likely announce their exploratories or campaigns into the spring and summer.

Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington.

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