House Republicans attempt to avoid 2022 letdown with new tactic on abortion: ‘We’re both pro-choice’

For more on the House Republican strategy on abortion issues, watch CNN’s “Inside Politics with Manu Raju,” this Sunday at 8 a.m. ET.

Republicans in the nation’s toughest House districts are making a major pivot on abortion with a surprising result — they’re starting to sound like Democrats.

GOP candidates in suburbs of places like Tucson, Des Moines and Syracuse are going public with vows never to criminalize abortion or support a national ban. Some are going further: Rep. John Duarte of California’s Central Valley, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in northern New Jersey and GOP candidate Matt Gunderson in the San Diego area have all described themselves as “pro choice” — with the latter even speaking directly to camera in his first TV ad and borrowing Bill Clinton’s phrase calling for the procedure to be “safe, legal and rare.”

In this fall’s toss-up battle for the House, swing-seat Republicans are carefully rebranding themselves on abortion after largely failing to respond to relentless Democratic attacks that cost the GOP big last cycle. And they’re attempting to neutralize the Democrats’ most potent attack — all in an effort to turn voters’ attention to the US-Mexico border and other galvanizing issues.

“Since we’re both pro-choice, then we have an opportunity to take that conversation, set it aside and have a real serious conversation about solving the border, about inflation, the economy, jobs, crime, education,” Gunderson said in an interview, referring to his opponent, Democratic Rep. Mike Levin.

It may be easier said than done.

Even as swing-seat Republicans attempt to paint a more nuanced view of the GOP’s stance on abortion, the national party has often muddled that message. In recent days, former first lady Melania Trump disclosed she supports the right to an abortion “free from any intervention” — while Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, took the staunchly conservative position of vowing to defund Planned Parenthood.

And it all underscores a critical weakness for the GOP fewer than 30 days from the election. The party still struggles to respond to an issue that makes up the vast majority of Democratic attacks this cycle: 80% of spending on TV ads by the House Democrats’ two main groups went to ads focusing on abortion. And it’s been particularly effective against GOP incumbents with well-documented comments on abortion — like Rep. Zach Nunn of Iowa — that Democrats have turned into attack ads.

“You can’t hide from it,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a Republican from North Dakota, reflecting on the lessons Republicans learned in the 2022 midterms. “We didn’t really have a plan for what had happened.”

Democrats say their foes’ efforts to show a softer side on abortion won’t work.

“He’s going to probably say anything he needs to say to try to win and see what sticks,” Levin, a three-term Democrat who cut an ad responding to Gunderson, told CNN.

“We know that if Mike Johnson is empowered, that there are many around here that would try to get a national abortion ban in place,” Levin said, even as his opponent said he’d oppose both a national ban and a bill to codify Roe, saying the issue should be left up to the states.

Behind closed doors, Republican leaders have spent months working with battleground candidates, particularly in New York and California, to sell a more moderate message on the issue. The House GOP campaign chief, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, has advised fellow Republicans to clearly articulate their views — or face globs of Democratic spending to distort their position.

And they’ve been far more aggressive in calling out some misleading Democratic ads, which have accused Republican candidates of supporting strict abortion bans or opposing exceptions for abortion even when that candidate is on the record with a more moderate position. In some cases, like in pivotal seats in North Carolina and Virginia, fact-checkers have agreed.

Hudson accused Democrats of “creating a false and distorted impression” of the GOP’s abortion position in the 2022 midterms and attacked Democrats for espousing their own “extreme” views on the issue.

“To fight back, we have encouraged our candidates to be open, direct and empathetic about their position – and nonpartisan fact-checkers have responded, picking apart a litany of Democratic attack ads for telling blatant lies,” Hudson told CNN.

Sarah Chamberlain, who runs the centrist-leaning Republican Mainstreet Partnership, recalled warning a prominent GOP pollster the day of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision that it would be a huge issue for women voters. He initially told her she was wrong, but phoned her after the midterms to admit his miscalculation. Since then, Chamberlain has used her own polling to help convince key swing-seat House Republicans to shift their approach.

“Don’t use the ‘A word.’ Talk about it as women’s health care,” Chamberlain said. “The economy, immigration — there’s tons of things we can win on and should win on. But this issue is still very strong.”

In some cases, Republicans are trying to walk back — or completely abandon — their past anti-abortion rights views.

When he first ran for Congress in 2022 for a seat in Washington state, GOP candidate Joe Kent told a local news station: “I would move to have a national ban on abortion.”

This time, Kent filmed an ad stating: “I oppose any new federal legislation on the issue.”

Kent’s opponent — Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez — called out his shifting position in a recent candidate debate, accusing him of playing “both sides of this card” and saying “what the pollsters tell him to say.”

And he’s not the only one whose public position has changed. Nunn, the endangered Republican in Iowa, is fighting for his political survival as Democrats devote a majority of their TV ads to the issue in this suburban battleground.

Nunn’s Democratic opponent, Lanon Baccam, has attacked the GOP incumbent with a clip from the Republican primary debate in 2022 when Nunn raised his hand to say all abortions should be illegal in the country. Nunn has not responded to the issue of abortion on air.

And in the key California race to hold Levin’s seat, the main Democratic super PAC — House Majority PAC — has reserved $1.5 million to begin next week in an effort to target Gunderson. Abortion attacks are expected to be part of the mix.

Levin has seized on Gunderson’s opposition to a 2022 California abortion rights referendum, which the Republican previously referred to as “disgusting” in a meeting with voters.

“What I did say was that late-term abortion is disgusting,” Gunderson told CNN when asked about those remarks, arguing the referendum “opened up a Pandora’s box to late-term abortion.”

Democratic leaders say Republicans are trying to muddy the waters.

“This is a desperation move by Republicans,” said House Democrats’ campaign chief, Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state. “People know where they stand.”

In 2022, Democrats dumped a half-billion dollars’ worth of abortion attacks into pivotal races and helped prevent a GOP wave. This time, Republicans, like freshman Rep. Marc Molinaro, who is defending a tough upstate New York seat, are looking to take that issue off the table for Democrats.

Molinaro was one of the first Republicans this cycle to launch a TV ad devoted solely to his stance on abortion.

“I believe in supporting all women and the choices they make,” Molinaro says, speaking into the camera, in the ad.

But even as he has sought to counter Democratic attacks, he hasn’t been entirely clear on what positions he does support. While the New York Republican touted support for “broad access” to birth control and blocking efforts to ban mifepristone in an interview, he didn’t offer a clear answer when asked if he supports restoring Roe or if he considers himself “pro choice.”

“I describe it as somebody who says that the decision and the choice on reproductive health is between you and your physician. Immaterial of anything else, that’s what I believe,” Molinaro told CNN. As for his decision to speak up on abortion, Molinaro added: “I think it’s important that people see me explain to them that I respect the choice they make and that they have my support.”

He isn’t the only Republican looking to keep their distance from the Dobbs decision.

Duarte, the vulnerable California Republican, refused to say if he supports the 2022 decision that struck down Roe.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s done. It’s in the rearview mirror,” Duarte told CNN. “And the fact is that abortion is back in the states where it belongs.”

And the congressman contended that his position — and Trump’s position — that the matter should be left up to the states is effectively pro-abortion rights.

“I am pro-choice,” Duarte said, arguing that Trump is even “functionally pro-choice,” though the former president regularly boasts about appointing three Supreme Court justices who struck down Roe and plans to vote against a Florida abortion rights referendum this fall.

Another battleground Republican, Rep. Juan Ciscomani of southern Arizona, went up with his own TV ad this fall saying he opposes a federal abortion ban and supports abortion in the cases of certain exceptions, such as protecting the life of the mother.

In a debate this week, Ciscomani added that he also opposed his state’s Civil War-era ban on nearly all abortions, which was recently repealed. But he didn’t say how he’ll vote this November on his state’s ballot measure to enshrine rights to an abortion up to the point of viability, saying only that it was a state issue.

And when asked about what he was trying to sell to voters with his ad, Ciscomani simply said: “My position.”