Republicans find their Supreme Court abortion victory is leading to lots of election losses

Republicans may be finding that the worst thing that can happen is getting what you’ve been wishing for for years.

Last week, voters in Ohio resoundingly defeated a measure that would have changed the requirement to amend the state constitution by ballot from a simple majority to 60 percent. The effort failed by 57 percent to 43 percent amid heavy turnout.

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The Republican legislators who had pushed the ballot measure through had said it was an attempt to curb the influence of outside money. That explanation was laughable, as the campaign was almost singlehandedly funded by rightwing (and anti-LGBTQ+) billionaire Dick Uihlein, an Illinois resident.

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The real reason was that Republicans were worried about an effort to preserve abortion rights in the state constitution. By raising the bar so high that it was impossible to do so, they hoped to make it possible for them to pass legislation restricting a woman’s right to choose, capitalizing on last year’s Supreme Court decision.

But what the GOP keeps learning, as it has its head and various other body parts handed to it, is that abortion is a powerful motivator for the party’s opponents.

Ohio is, by any measure, a GOP state. It has a GOP governor and a supermajority in the legislature. Last year, voters elected J.D. Vance, who embraces the worst excesses of MAGA, to the U.S. Senate. The other senator, Sherrod Brown, is a Democrat facing a tough re-election battle next year.

Maybe not as tough as it was before the vote last week, though. Combined with the results from last year’s midterm elections, the Ohio results indicate that Republicans have substantially overplayed their hand when it comes to abortion issues. Voters, including Republican voters, don’t like abortion restrictions and will show up to vote – even for off-cycle elections in the middle of the summer – to make their displeasure known.

For Republicans, that’s not a good sign for a couple of reasons. This isn’t the first time they’ve been defeated on normal friendly turf. They’ve had similar setbacks in Kansas, Montana, and Kentucky.

The party has had high hopes of regaining control of the Senate next year. However, the abortion issue is complicating their hopes. For one thing, the Ohio vote showed that having abortion on the ballot essentially rolled out the red carpet for Democratic voters. Turnout was exceptionally heavy in liberal areas of the state. Worse still, the issue harmed them with suburban voters and Republican women.

Then there’s the Trump factor. If Donald Trump is the presidential nominee, as looks likely right now, the party will already have to contend with his multiple indictments (and possibly convictions). And like anti-abortion measures, Trump is great at motivating his opponents to show up at the polls.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Republicans are under incredible pressure from anti-abortion groups to step up their efforts. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for saying last month that abortion restrictions should be left up to the states instead of embracing a federal ban. In fact, DeSantis signed a measure that bans abortions after six weeks.

Democrats are planning to hammer Republicans for their increasingly harsh restrictions at every possible opportunity. In the end, it’s never going to turn deep red states blue. Where it will make a difference is in the battleground states. Peeling votes away from voters who would normally vote Republican and increasing turnout in districts that are heavily Democratic could make all the difference in a tight race.

Republicans seem to think that transphobia will help them win back voters.  “If Sherrod Brown wants to run on his support for child gender reassignment surgery and painful abortions up to the moment of birth, we’ll welcome that,” Phillip Letsou, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told Axios.

Of course, they tried that message before: for the ballot measure in Ohio. We know how well that worked for them.