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Not all candidates, of course. It’s still safe-ish to back a total ban if you’re running in, say, blood-red Wyoming.

But in purplish Arizona? Or indigo-blue Washington?

All elections have consequences but rarely do they have consequences as immediate as Democrat Pat Ryan’s upset win in the NY-19 special election. Ryan ran hard on abortion rights post-Roe; his opponent, Republican Marc Molinaro, ran hard on inflation and the economy, the issues that were supposed to produce a red wave this fall. Ryan won by three points in a true toss-up district.

Suddenly Republicans across the country are terrified that the Dobbs backlash is going to blow them up too. They might no longer be able to duck the issue by shouting “inflation!” at voters. They may have to engage on it and reassure undecideds that they won’t let the right’s staunchest pro-lifers set the agenda if Republicans take back Congress.

Here’s Tiffany Smiley, the GOP Senate nominee in Washington. Smiley had a heavy lift even before Dobbs was handed down but the Democratic resurgence over the past month fueled by falling gas prices, booming jobs numbers, and the Roe backlash has all but left her for dead. She’s doing what she can today to counterprogram Patty Murray’s attacks that she’s an “extremist” who’d ban abortion completely if given the chance. Nuh uh, says Smiley:

She said last year that she supports Texas’s heartbeat bill giving private citizens the right to sue abortion providers who perform abortions after six weeks. That doesn’t contradict her opposition to a federal ban — three cheers for federalism! — but no doubt some wary pro-choicers in Washington won’t take her at her word. “If she’s so anti-abortion that she’d let a state ban it after six weeks,” they may think, “then she might let the federal government do it too.”

Still, Smiley’s clarification on abortion is small potatoes compared to the intensive overhaul that Blake Masters’s campaign has suddenly undergone. Masters is the Trump-backed nationalist facing Mark Kelly in Arizona. Kelly is well-liked, has the advantage of incumbency, and is a fundraising juggernaut. A Republican who’s already an underdog would be playing with fire in the current climate by taking a hard line on abortion — and Masters *did* take a hard line on it in the primary. But no more:

“I am 100% pro-life,” Masters’ website read as of Thursday morning.

That language is now gone.

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Another notable deletion: A line that detailed his support for “a federal personhood law (ideally a Constitutional amendment) that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed.”…

Now the website states he backs “a law or a Constitutional amendment that bans late term (third trimester) abortion and partial-birth abortion at the federal level” and “pro-life legislation, pregnancy centers, and programs that make it easier for pregnant women to support a family and decide to choose life.”

Watch this ad from last December, when Masters was working hard to distinguish himself in a crowd of primary candidates all intent on showing conservatives that they were the fightin’-est fighter in the field:

[embedded content]

Now watch his new ad released today, during the general election campaign, and see if you can detect any subtle shifts in tone:

He’s totally right that most Americans oppose late-term and partial-birth abortion. His new position fits comfortably within the mainstream of public opinion, which condones abortion early and opposes it late.

But that’s a long way from “genocide” talk, huh? Remember, more than 90 percent of abortions happen in the first trimester. Under the legal regime suggested here by the new and centrist-y Blake Masters, the genocide would continue at a brisk clip.

He and Smiley aren’t the only Republican candidates to inch away from talk of a total ban lately. Per CNN, Adam Laxalt in Nevada published an op-ed this month supporting a state ban after 13 weeks and opposing any sort of federal ban, another set of positions in line with mainstream voter opinion. In blue Colorado, Joe O’Dea pushed the envelope to 20 weeks of legal abortion with a ban thereafter except in cases of rape, incest, and where the mother’s life is threatened. I wonder if that’s enough to assuage voters or if Laxalt, O’Dea, and others will go the Smiley/Masters route by taking on the issue in TV ads. Abortion polices may be dangerous enough to Republicans now that they have no choice but to answer Democratic attacks on a highly visible platform so that swing voters aren’t left to assume that they support total bans.

I’m also curious to see which of the two strategies displayed above those Republicans adopt. Smiley’s federalist response is silent on the question of whether she’d support a total ban in Washington state (which would never happen anyway); she limits her engagement on the issue to saying which federal bills she would or wouldn’t support as a member of the Senate. Masters’s response is more substantive, proposing a suitable legal framework without focusing on the state/federal distinction and, importantly, going on offense against Kelly by describing his support for abortion on demand as the truly “extremist” position. And he’s right — in theory, Republicans could turn the tables on Democrats by highlighting their own fanatic belief that abortion should be legal until the moment of birth.

But I don’t know if that’ll spook voters as much in the context of Roe being overturned as Dems’ chatter about total bans will. Legal abortion was the status quo for 50 years; that status quo has now been upended. The majority of the public that supported Roe fears it’s losing ground and is therefore more apt to worry about overreach by its victorious opponents than pro-lifers are.

One last point. Unless the GOP really does produce a sizable red wave this fall, the jitters Republican politicians are feeling right now over abortion policy will make them think twice about passing a federal abortion ban if they regain total control of government in 2025. Devout pro-lifers will demand it, but underperforming in November would convince the party that strict bans are an electoral loser and that they face destruction at the polls if they ever try it nationally. If you want a federal ban on the practice, nothing short of a big red rout this year will make the leadership consider it. Any winnable races that are lost where the defeat can plausibly be blamed on abortion politics will give the party cold feet for years to come.

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