On Tuesday night, the ruby red dominion of Ohio became the seventh state in a row to codify abortion access in local law. In the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the abortion issue back to the states, voters have made clear that however opposed they are, in theory, to unfettered abortion, they do not trust pro-life Republicans with one iota of control over the issue, turning the previously dormant matter into a political winner for Democrats.
During the third Republican presidential debate, Nikki Haley seemed to be the only candidate to get the memo. The abortion answer from the former Ambassador to the United Nations is worth reading in its entirety:
BIDEN CAMPAIGN TAKES VICTORY LAP ON DEMOCRATIC WINS AFTER POOR POLLING
Haley's message is crucial not just because it is honest about the procedural realities rendering Republican dreams of a federal ban next to impossible. It is not even just that unlike other candidates who pay lip service to the issue, she has promoted actual policies to reduce the demand for abortion, such as pushing the FDA to move more contraception formulas to over-the-counter status. What Haley does here that nobody else will is try to establish trust and common cause in the abortion debate.
Critics of Haley have asked why she repeatedly asserts that women who obtain abortions must be exempt from punishments ensuing from state abortion restrictions. Well, if a year of solid election losses for pro-life measures is any indication, Haley is correct to do so because voters (and disproportionately women and independents that the GOP sorely need) believe that Republicans will take abortion restrictions to their most extreme mileage if given a single inch by the electorate. This distrust of pro-life mouthpieces explains the gap between polling that indicates the median voter is theoretically in favor of a 15-week abortion ban (one more permissive than most of Europe's) and the blistering beat down of pro-life measures in practice at the polls.
A major reason for this distrust? Pro-life talking heads, who often say in one breath that they only want a limited abortion ban because they want to protect the unborn but then in the next breath are in hysterics over women's sexual "body counts" or dog whistling that the nation would be better off with single-earner households, which women understand is a call for them to get back and barefoot in the kitchen.
Haley's abortion messaging is not a panacea, but it is a start and an honest invitation for the dejected center to join the conversation. And that's a hell of a lot more than what anyone else in the party has offered as of yet.