Republicans in vulnerable House seats are looking to avoid abortion becoming their undoing by offering policies that differ from more conservative members of the party.
Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) told Politico he is looking to take a "commonsense" approach to abortion policy and believes Democrats will be unsuccessful in making it the issue to unseat him in 2024.
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“They tried that in 2022, and my opponent spent $3.1 million trying to paint me as that when that’s not the case. I do believe in exceptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother. And I do not oppose abortion in the first trimester,” LaLota said.
“We won by 11 points, so if they want to light that money on fire in 2024 again, that’s their decision,” he continued.
LaLota won in 2022 over his Democratic opponent 54.1%-43.4% despite being in a Republican +3 district, per the Cook Partisan Voting Index. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced in April that LaLota's seat, along with five others in New York, were ones they are targeting in the 2024 election.
Republicans were able to secure a narrow majority in the House of Representatives during the 2022 elections due in large part to major swing district victories in states such as New York. States where abortion laws were on the ballot, including Michigan, saw Republicans suffer crushing defeats.
In the same election that voters in Michigan voted to protect abortion via an amendment to the state constitution, the GOP lost the gubernatorial race, along with control of the state Senate for the first time since the 1980s, among other losses.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has been vocal in saying that Republicans will "lose huge" in future elections unless they find a "middle ground" on abortion.
"I want us to find some middle ground. As a Republican, a conservative, constitutional conservative who's pro-life, I saw what happened after Roe v. Wade because I represent a very purple district — as purple as this dress," Mace said on ABC's This Week in April. "And I saw the sentiment change dramatically, and as Republicans, we need to read the room on this issue because the vast majority of folks are not in the extremes."
"That is the wrong message heading into '24. We're going to lose huge if we continue down this path of extremities," she added. "And finding that middle ground: The vast majority of people want some sort of gestational limits, not at nine months but somewhere in the middle. They want exceptions for rape and incest. They want women to have access to birth control. These are all very commonsense positions that we can take and still be pro-life."
Mace narrowly ousted then-Rep. Joe Cunningham in the 2020 election, 50.6%-49.3%, before winning by nearly 14 points in 2022 in the newly reformed Republican +7 district, per the Cook Partisan Voting Index.
The 2022 midterm elections came months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, sending abortion laws back to the states to decide. The 2024 House elections will run in the shadow of the presidential race, in which President Joe Biden has made abortion rights a campaign rallying cry more so than Republicans have done with abortion restrictions.
Former Vice President Mike Pence has been the most vocal GOP presidential candidate on abortion, saying on Friday that all Republican candidates should support a federal 15-week abortion ban.
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"Every Republican candidate for president should support a ban on abortion before 15 weeks as a minimum nationwide standard," Pence said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Road to Majority" policy conference.
The Republicans are looking to hold on to or expand their 222-212 majority in the lower chamber of Congress in 2024 after regaining control of the House in 2022.