Republican leaders around the United States are in a panic after Tuesday’s “brutal” election night for anti-abortion rights conservatives, Chris Hayes said on tonight’s “All In With Chris Hayes” While describing the “rising panic” among some party members, he explained many are “scrambling” to come up with new messaging, while others remain dedicated to eradicating abortion rights across the country.
Of the latter group, Hayes cautioned, “What that does is correctly communicate to voters that Republicans will not stop until they criminalize all abortions everywhere. And that … is just about the least popular position in American politics right now.”
Hayes also pointed to Wednesday night’s Republican debate as further evidence the party, including many of its current candidates for President, is deeply divided on the topic. He continued, “It is really hard to overstate just how unpopular the Republican position on abortion is, and how solid the pro-choice majority has become in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”
Since the landmark law protecting the right to abortion was overturned in 2022, seven states have had abortion rights on the ballot. In all seven—Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, California, and Vermont—voters have soundly voted to protect abortion rights.
Most recently, voters in Ohio voted to add abortion rights to the state’s constitution on Tuesday.
Further, Hayes continued, Democrats have won a number of gubernatorial races in key states, including Arizona and Michigan, and voters in Virginia elected a Democrat majority in the state’s Senate and House.
In response, the Democratic Party is pushing to add abortion rights to the 2024 ballots in a number of crucial states, including Arizona, Nevada, and Florida.
Hayes also said that with this wealth of information, it would be fair to assume Republicans would decide to reign in the party’s stance on abortion rights. No so, he added, “They have spent years cultivating voters, particularly evangelical Christians in particular, who really believe in this.”
“They really do want to outlaw abortion everywhere, without exceptions,” Hayes continued. “They think it’s evil and they want to get rid of it. There are millions of them, and it’s not like some schtick they’re doing. They’re gonna do it. They’re zealous.”
As he also pointed out, some of those party members include Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Senator Matt Huffman, the Ohio Senate President, and organizations such as Michigan’s Right to Life, who filed a lawsuit in May to overturn the state’s Prop 3, which protects the right to abortion in the state.