GOP candidates navigate abortion minefield

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

64% :Anti-abortion proponents argue that those candidates lost their bids because they were not aggressive enough in painting their Democratic opponents as extremists on the issue.
53% :Anti-abortion advocates and Republicans have said the news media and candidates should be cognizant of the language they use when talking about exceptions and restrictions.
47% :One Republican pollster noted that the GOP saw success with that tactic in 2021, when then-Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin hit back against his Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe on abortion.
45% : A Gallup poll released June 14 found that 69 percent of Americans said that abortion should be legal throughout the first trimester of pregnancy.
42% : Christina Reynolds, senior vice president of communications and content at Emily's List, pointed to one candidate running for lieutenant governor in North Carolina who recently released an ad focused on abortion.
38% : McAuliffe accused Youngkin of wanting to "ban abortion," while Youngkin called McAuliffe "the most extreme pro-abortion candidate in America today.""Even pro-choice voters are uncomfortable with the idea of up-to-birth abortion," said Amanda Iovino, a Republican pollster.
37% : The divergent messaging comes as even members of the party urge fellow Republicans to moderate on abortion heading into 2024 or risk losing key elections.
37% : "It might serve them well in a primary but whoever is the nominee, if you take this really harsh, restrictive stance on abortion, then it's just going to come back to hurt you in the general," she added.
36% : Republican presidential contenders are navigating a minefield on the issue of abortion one year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, as candidates seek to appeal to the party's anti-abortion base while keeping more moderate general election voters in mind.
36% : As for voters, 61 percent of Iowans say abortion should remain legal, and 49 percent disagree the procedure should be banned at six weeks, according to a 2022 poll from Des Moines Register.
34% :Some Republicans, however, have expressed concerns that their position on abortion could be costly in a general election.
32% : Forty-five percent of respondents agree that abortion should be banned around six weeks of pregnancy.
28% : Iowa's state Supreme Court on June 16 upheld a 2019 district court ruling that blocked the law - striking down Reynolds's request and keeping abortion legal.
22% : Republican presidential contenders have handled the issue of abortion differently, with Trump dodging whether he would be supportive of a federal abortion ban and also applauding the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
18% : South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) signed a six-week ban on the procedure with exceptions last month, while Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) requested to reinstate a 2018 law that would have banned abortion in most cases after six weeks.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.