We begin today’s roundup with Mike DeBonis and Josh Dawsey’s take at The Washington Post on the Republican midterm gameplan:
One week after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would eliminate the constitutional right to abortion, Republican candidates and strategists are increasingly confident that such a decision would not seriously harm the GOP’s chances of regaining House and Senate majorities come November, as Democrats have suggested it might.
That belief is rooted in reams of polling, nearly all of it conducted before the leak, showing that economic challenges, particularly runaway inflation, are by far the most powerful force motivating voters this year, followed by crime and immigration — issues where Republicans believe they will have an enduring advantage. And, so far, they see scant evidence that reproductive rights are set to dislodge those priorities, given the often-muted reaction in states that have already moved to restrict abortion rights.
Republican candidates are likely to stick to a playbook that many debuted last week, after Politico first published Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion striking down Roe: downplay, divert and dodge — refocusing public attention on what they believe will be more potent issues.
Catherine Rampell analyzes the forced birth politics of the modern Republican Party:
Republican politicians working to overturn Roe v. Wade say they are pro-life and antiabortion. In fact, they are neither. What they are is pro-forced birth.
This distinction is about more than semantics. These officials have drawn a clear line, as evidenced by policies they’ve adopted in conjunction with their opposition to Roe. GOP-led states are making choices, today, that increase the chances of unplanned pregnancies and, therefore, demand for abortions; their choices also limit access to health care and other critical programs for new moms, endangering the lives and welfare of mothers and their children.
At The Cut, Andrea González-Ramírez examines coming ballot measures on choice:
In some states, conservatives are trying to codify their own anti-abortion measures by putting them to the public for a vote. In August, Kansas voters will decide on a referendum that would amend the state constitution to specify that it does not protect any right to an abortion. Then, in November, Kentuckians will vote on a similar referendum, and Montanans will decide whether to classify a fetus as a “legal person.”
Meanwhile, the coalition Reproductive Freedom for All launched a ballot effort earlier this year in Michigan to codify abortion rights in the state’s constitution. The coalition has until July to collect the necessary signatures for the measure to appear on the ballot during the midterm election. In November, Vermonters will also vote on an initiative to protect “reproductive liberty.” The constitutional amendment would make it extremely tough for the state to restrict access to reproductive health care, including abortion care and contraception.
At The New Yorker, Peter Slevin looks at the Nebraska governor’s race where the Trump-backed candidate is accused of groping women:
An executive who owns multiple cattle-and-agriculture companies, Herbster donated $1.3 million to Trump’s Presidential campaigns and attended the January 6, 2021, Stop the Steal rally, on the Ellipse. He has spent nearly nine milliondollars of his own money on a gubernatorial campaign pinned almost entirely to Trump’s endorsement. Herbster’s candidacy and his fervent embrace of Trumpism have, ahead of Tuesday’s primary, bitterly divided Republicans in the state, which has a long history of sending centrists to Washington, from Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to Democratic Senator Ben Nelson. His candidacy is also another test of Trump’s sway over G.O.P. voters—and the direction of the Party itself.
Last month, Herbster was accused of conduct that would likely have disqualified him in the eyes of many Nebraskans in the pre-Trump era. Eight women, including a strongly conservative Republican state senator, said that Herbster had groped them or touched them inappropriately, Aaron Sanderford, a political reporter for the Nebraska Examiner, a nonprofit startup, revealed.
On a final note, enjoy this rundown from Justin Baragona at The Daily Beast on Dinesh D’Souza and his inability to even get extremists on the right to promote his new movie:
It appears that far-right provocateur Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie peddling election lies is too batty even for Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Newsmax.
The conservative firebrand took to Twitter on Monday to gripe that sympathetic MAGA media was supposedly suppressing 2000 Mules, his latest propaganda film peddling a wholly flawed and faulty premiseabout ballot fraud in the 2020 election.