Democrats Went All-In on Abortion, Here’s Why They Failed Spectacularly

The first presidential election after the Dobbs decision has proven at least two things: First, women are not automatons and our ability to discern important issues shouldn’t be underestimated. Second, aborting our nation’s future — our children — is not the galvanizing issue Democrats and the legacy media insisted.

A headline at The Guardian on Election Day proclaimed, “If Harris wins, it’s because of abortion.” The verdict: spectacular failure.

Democrats went all in on abortion, spending $570 million on abortion-focused TV advertising alone for federal races during the general election, according to data from AdImpact, versus Republicans’ $37 million on abortion-focused TV ads. Abortion was Democrats’ single biggest issue.

On a debate stage where President Trump had to face off against not only his opponent Kamala Harris but moderators whose left-wing bias was out of control, Trump did what he has done better than anyone since 2016 — calling out Democrats as the true extremists in their support for unlimited abortion and even infanticide of babies born alive: “You should ask, will she allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month?” Harris never did answer.

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Contrary to pundits’ predictions of the largest gender gap in American electoral history, Trump performed better among women voters than he did in 2020. Overexcited commentators should have listened to Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, who wrote, “The current gender gap looks less like a ‘historic’ one and more like the one we saw in 2016. . . . Harris isn’t doing any better with women than Clinton or than Biden did in 2020.” Across the nation, cities and suburbs alike shifted toward Republicans.

Trump made double-digit gains with Hispanic voters, many of whom regard abortion as a moral issue and are averse to in-your-face pro-abortion extremism. Geraldo Reyes, a Democratic lawmaker in a deep-blue state, noted, “I have at least half a dozen personal friends of mine that are supporting Trump, that 10 years ago were Democrats.” He cited abortion as one of the key issues driving the change.

Harris’s frequent refrain on the campaign trail was that Americans need not abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to support her agenda of limitless abortion on demand. But as part of her closing message, she made it clear that this agenda goes in only one direction: toward more abortions. In one of her last interviews on NBC, she flat-out refused to consider even religious exemptions in any congressional legislation on abortion, stating, “I don’t think we should be making concessions” when it comes to abortion, which she described as “a fundamental freedom.” This may have been the final nail in Kamala’s campaign coffin for Catholic voters, who backed Trump over Harris by 15 points — eight points’ growth from 2020.

While Democrats saturated airwaves with fearmongering, SBA Pro-Life America’s ground team took our message directly to the doorsteps of more than 4 million voters in the top eight battleground states. Our canvassers had pivotal conversations with voters like Linda, a lifelong Democrat who at 93 years old became convicted that life was the most important issue to her vote, and Asia, who considers herself pro-choice but doesn’t believe in abortion with no limits through all nine months. With all our voter contact methods — in person, online, mail, text, and more — we reached a grand total of over 10 million voters to defeat Harris and the Democrats.

In the U.S. Senate, pro-life Republicans have flipped four seats, reclaiming the majority. With Trump in the White House, Jim Justice, Bernie Moreno, Tim Sheehy, and Dave McCormick in the Senate, and the House safe in GOP hands too, the Democrats’ national all-trimester abortion mandate is going nowhere.

The tide is turning on state ballot initiatives as well, with pro-life victories in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. The media have eagerly painted life as a losing issue since Dobbs, despite the enormous evidence of every pro-life governor being soundly reelected. As SBA’s Kelsey Pritchard writes, “Tuesday’s ballot measure results dealt the abortion industry a devastating blow. The reality is the pro-life movement won the majority of the high-stakes abortion ballot measure fights on election night.” For the first time in two of those states, pro-life forces achieved fundraising equality with the pro-abortion side. All three victories had a top ingredient in common: state GOP leaders running into battle, not away. In Florida, even though pro-lifers were massively outspent, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood were no match for the bold leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis. The winning formula is well established. Now is not the time to sit back, but to go on offense and start regaining ground for life.

President Trump is proud of his part in reversing the great injustice that was Roe v. Wade and in keeping pro-life commitments. The accomplishments of his first term now become the baseline for his second. It is time to begin dismantling the egregious policies of Biden and Harris, such as funding abortions around the globe with taxpayer dollars, turning veterans’ health clinics into abortion centers, wielding lawfare to force doctors to perform abortions, and imprisoning peaceful pro-life activists.

That’s not all. The abortion industry has become more and more aggressive in promoting abortion even after the reversal of Roe loosened their grip on America’s laws and America’s people. To defeat them in the long term, we must strengthen the pro-life, pro-woman, pro-family resolve of the Republican Party, centered on the unalienable right to life for the unborn child that exists under the 14th Amendment. Most Americans support early, reasonable limits on abortion, not laws that look more like those of Communist China than our land of liberty.

In a poignant moment in his victory speech, President-elect Trump noted, “Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason . . . to save our country and to restore America to greatness.” Across the nation there are still hundreds of thousands of babies to save and moms to serve with life-affirming resources that reach to the root causes of abortion. What beautiful ongoing work that is, and we hope and look forward to tackling it together.

LifeNews Note: Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.