(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump blamed the disastrous 2022 election on Republicans taking a consistent pro-life position and not showing up to vote in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Trump blamed pro-life voters and politicians in a Truth Social post, according to the Citizen Free Press.
“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the Midterms,” the former president said. “I was 233-20!”
Trump made clear that he thought the problem was the pro-life movement.
Republicans underperformed, according to Trump because of “the abortion issue” that was “poorly handled by many Republicans,” he said.
The issue was especially problematic with those pro-lifers who “firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters,” he wrote.
Trump argued that these people alienated moderate voters and that they failed to show up on election day.
“The people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again,” Trump wrote.
Mary Margaret Olohan, a senior reporter at the Daily Signal, summarized Trump’s argument tweeting, “Trump blames the midterms on hard core pro-lifers.”
The broadside came against one of Trump’s most dependable allies, the pro-life movement.
He campaigned on appointing justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade in 2016, as reported by The Hill.
Still, Trump’s instincts appear to be fairly accurate. Exit polling estimated that abortion was the second most important issue for voters in the 2022 election, only behind inflation. Further, Democrats were trailing significantly before SCOTUS overturned Roe, but made significant gains afterwards.
The Citizen Free Press argued that generational changes may be behind this shift. It reported that Gen. Z votes were behind some of the closest Democrat victories, and that Gen Z is a very socially liberal generation.
