ICYMI: GOP Senate Candidates Race to Rewrite their Anti-Abortion Records; Voters To See Through It in November

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With abortion poised to be a major issue this election cycle, anti-abortion candidates are already trying to rewrite their records and scrub their websites of their out-of-touch, anti-abortion positions. In case you missed it, a HuffPost article this week detailed ongoing efforts to backtrack from GOP Senate candidates in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada. Voters didn’t fall for these tactics in 2022 and 2023 and they won’t be fooled by these candidates’ blatant lies and deceptions in November.  Read the highlights from the HuffPost article below.

HuffPost: GOP Senate Candidates Are Racing To Rewrite Past Abortion Positions. Democrats Are Counting On Voters To See Through It.

• [The] leading Republican Senate candidates in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan are similarly hoping that voters will trust their more moderate statements as candidates this cycle, rather than judge them for toeing the socially conservative line years or even months earlier.
• It’s all part of a deliberate strategy by national Republicans to get in front of an issue that played a major role in enabling Democrats to gain a Senate seat in 2022, and that is still the liberal party’s best hope of holding the chamber on a November map where the GOP holds a decisive upper hand.
• Democrats are betting that voters will see the multitude of ways GOP senators would help restrict access to abortion, even if they now insist they wouldn’t support abortion bans. HuffPost reached out to the leading GOP candidates for Senate in four major swing states — Brown, Kari Lake in Arizona, Mike Rogers in Michigan and Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania — for more details on their stances on abortion rights. All four were silent on the Supreme Court case heard last week aiming to ban mifepristone, a pill now used in over 60% of American abortions. All would be expected to back the same type of conservative judges who overturned Roe v. Wade in the first place.

Sam Brown, GOP Senate Candidate in Nevada

• Pressed by NBC News to explain his past support for a 20-week ban in Texas, while running for the state legislature there in 2014, Brown characterized it as an extension of the same states’ rights approach that drives his respect for Nevada law. Left unaddressed: Brown’s recent tenure as volunteer head of the anti-abortion Nevada Faith and Freedom Coalition; his refusal to articulate his stance on federal abortion restrictions as recently as July; his attendance of an anti-abortion rights gala in October; and perhaps most importantly, the kinds of judges he would vote to confirm to the federal bench.
• When asked by HuffPost about apparent shifts in his abortion position prior to his NBC News interview, his campaign denied that he had ever changed his stance. His affiliation with various anti-abortion groups reflect his “pro-life” views, but do not conflict with his belief that it is best decided by states, Kristy Wilkinson, a Brown campaign spokesperson, said in a statement.

Kari Lake, GOP Senate Candidate in Arizona

• As a candidate in June 2022, Lake celebrated the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning a federal right to abortion. In a primary debate later that month, Lake affirmed that she believes that life begins at conception, and that abortion pills should be illegal.
• This past November, Lake was already trying to downplay her support for the complete ban as an outgrowth of her belief that it should be handled at the state level. Asked about her support for the territorial ban, Lake told ABC15 Arizona, “I haven’t changed.”
• “What I said … was, ’I’m running for governor, not emperor. I don’t write the laws,” she added. “The legislature writes the laws and as the chief executive of the state, you uphold the laws.”
• But in an interview with NBC News in March, Lake declared her support for the 15-week ban, while appearing to acknowledge that a ballot referendum might allow for an even more permissive system.

Mike Rogers, GOP Senate Candidate in Michigan

• As a member of the House from 2001 to 2015, Rogers co-sponsored four different fetal personhood bills that would completely ban abortion nationwide: in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2013.
• Then, as a Senate candidate this past September, Rogers promised that he would do nothing to infringe on Michigan’s law protecting abortion rights. In a 2022 ballot initiative, Michigan voters amended their state constitution to make abortion a right through the first 24 weeks of a pregnancy.

David McCormick, GOP Senate Candidate in Pennsylvania

• In [an April 2022 debate] McCormick said that he supported prohibiting abortion except for cases where the life of the mother is at risk, suggesting he did not support exceptions for rape and incest. 
• But McCormick’s 2024 campaign provided HuffPost with an audio recording from an event he held in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, in February 2022, where he states that he backs the other exceptions as well.
• “I do have three exceptions — the ones you just said — rape, incest, and the life of the mother,” he said in response to a question from a voter. “That’s the same position Ronald Reagan had. That’s the same position Donald Trump has.”

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