By all accounts, Republicans’ optimism about taking control of the U.S. Senate is reaching new heights. Axios reported this week, for example, that GOP senators are privately telling major donors that the party will flip a seat in West Virginia; the Montana race is nearly in the bag; and the contest in Ohio against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is looking increasingly good for the GOP.
The party might want to hesitate, however, before getting too excited about that last one. WCMH, the NBC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, reported:
Ohio’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate questioned why a certain group of women would be concerned about abortion during an event in the state. NBC4 obtained a video recording from a Warren County town hall on Friday, where GOP Senate hopeful Bernie Moreno accused suburban women of being focused solely on their ability to get an abortion.”
“You know, the left has a lot of single-issue voters,” Moreno said late last week at a town hall–style event. “Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion is it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else.’ … OK. It’s a little crazy by the way, but — especially for women that are like past 50 — I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you.’”
Republican Senate candidate for Ohio, Bernie Moreno says women over 50 don't have any reason to support reproductive rights.
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) September 24, 2024
Bad news for Moreno: Women in Ohio (even women over 50!) apparently do still have the right to vote. pic.twitter.com/vvnhDZVhsV
The Republican candidate’s campaign spokesperson later clarified that Moreno was making “a tongue-in-cheek joke.”
Yes, how hilarious. A far-right Senate candidate described women’s interest in abortion rights as “a little crazy” and suggested post-menopausal women should probably be indifferent to the future of reproductive rights in the United States — because, you know, they can’t get pregnant.
What a cut-up.
In case this isn’t obvious, it was just last year when voters in the Buckeye State voted on a statewide measure on abortion, and reproductive rights advocates scored a big victory, despite Ohio’s shift to “red state” status. Those are, of course, many of the same voters Moreno is appealing to now.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who spent much of the weekend telling women they’ll soon “no longer be thinking about abortion,” kept the rhetorical push going at his latest rally in Pennsylvania, assuring women voters, “You will be protected, and I will be your protector,” apparently unaware of how creepy that sounded. It was also a curious message, given that a jury last year found the former president liable for sexual abuse. In the same remarks, the Republican candidate added, in reference to Democrats, “All they can talk about is abortion. That’s all they talk about. And it really no longer pertains.” Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans were heavily invested in the idea that abortion rights simply didn’t matter that much to the American public. Ahead of the 2024 elections, prominent GOP voices are pushing a slightly different line, arguing that women shouldn’t care that much about abortion rights. Two years ago, the party’s assumptions proved faulty. We’ll learn in six weeks whether Republicans have made effectively the same mistake twice.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
