Trump wins but so do seven of 10 pro-abortion constitutional amendments
Oswald Clark and Paul Tuns:
On Nov. 5, Donald Trump earned a decisive victory in his quest to return to the White House, winning in all seven battleground states, while Republicans held the House of Representatives and took control of the Senate – developments that should help Trump enact his agenda. Yet at the same time, seven states voted for pro-abortion constitutional amendments while three such referendum efforts failed.
Trump won seven states that Joe Biden took in 2020, with comfortable victories in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, and narrow wins of less than one per cent in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Had Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, won in those latter three states, she would have been elected president. Trump ended up winning 312 electoral votes compared to Harris’s 226. Trump won 50 per cent of the vote – nearly 77 million in total – compared to Harris’s 48.4 per cent, or just over 74 million votes.
Harris ran on a campaign that focused on “abortion rights” and “democracy” while Donald Trump vowed not to sign any federal law limiting abortion nationally saying that the 2022 Dobbs decision returned the issue to the states.
While some analysists say that being pro-abortion was a failed electoral strategy for the Democrats, the numbers suggest that it might have narrowed the loss for Harris. Exit polls show that for the first time the pro-abortion side won a majority of voters for whom abortion was the most important issue. According to the Consortium exit poll, 14 per cent of voters said abortion was the most important issue and among this group Harris won 74 per cent to 25 per cent – a three to one advantage. Abortion was the third most important issue this election, far behind democracy (34 per cent) and the economy (32 per cent), but ahead of immigration (11 per cent) and foreign policy (4 per cent).
Nearly twice as many people said that abortion should be legal (65 per cent) than illegal (31 per cent). Harris won the vast majority of those who say abortion should be “legal in all cases” (87 per cent) while those who thought abortion should be “legal in most cases” were evenly split at 49 per cent for both candidates. Those who wanted restrictions (“illegal in most cases”) and outlawed (“illegal in all cases”) backed Trump 92 per cent and 88 per cent respectively.
Trump won both white men (60 per cent) and white women (53) while Harris won black women (91 per cent) and black men (77). Hispanic men favoured Trump 55 per cent to 43, while Hispanic women favoured Harris 60 per cent to 38 per cent.
Harris won every age group except those age 45-64 which went for Trump 54 per cent to 44 per cent. Harris won a majority of voters who had a college degree or more education while Trump won a majority of those with less education.
Catholics make up nearly a quarter of the electorate and 58 per cent of them voted for Trump. White Catholics voted 61 per cent in favour of Trump. Just over a fifth of voters are white born-again or evangelical Christians, and Trump won this demographic 82 per cent to 17. Those who said they had no religion represented a quarter of the electorate and they voted 71 per cent in favour of Harris.
Only 27 per cent of the electorate has at least one child under 18 living at home and they favoured Trump 53 per cent to 44. Nearly three-quarters reported having no children at home and Harris narrowly won this group 50 per cent to 48. Harris won both women with children and women without children while Trump won men with children and men without children.
Just over half (54 per cent) of voters were married and they broke in Trump’s favour 56 per cent to 43, while those who were not married favoured Harris 54 per cent to 42. Both married men and married women voted in favour of Trump, 60 and 51 per cent respectively, while 49 per cent non-married men broke for Trump compared to 47 per cent for Harris. Harris had a 21-point advantage among non-married women, garnering 59 per cent among that group.
The social issue that did seem to have helped the Trump campaign was its campaign advertisements attacking Harris for her support of the transgender agenda. According to Blueprint, a Democratic public opinion research initiative, among voters who decided on a candidate in the last few days of the campaign, two of the three issues that most concerned them were related to the transgender issue: Democrats using taxpayer dollars to pay for transgender surgery for undocumented immigrants in prison” (83 per cent) and “allow(ing) minors to transition without informing parents” (77 per cent). Some estimates say the Trump campaign spent more than $100 million in these attack ads, some of which concluded “Harris is for them/they, not you.”
The Republicans gained five senate seats to take control of the Senate and gained one seat to retain control of the House. With Republican control of Congress, Donald Trump should have no trouble getting judges approved to federal and appellate courts. Already, some pro-abortion activists have called for the two older pro-abortion Supreme Court justices to retire so the lame duck Joe Biden could appoint their replacements.
It is unclear if pro-life Republicans – some of whom floated ideas for a 16-week national ban in 2023 – would introduce pro-life legislation at odds with Trump’s insistence that he wants states to regulate and restrict abortion.
Most pro-life leaders are cautiously optimistic about president-elect Trump, saying the early signals are that Trump is certain to be an improvement over the Biden administration and whatever a president Harris might have done. There are calls to pardon pro-life activists jailed under the country’s Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances (FACE) law and to defund abortion at home and abroad.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said that if Trump is “serious about ending the federal role in abortion policy, then we need to cut federal taxpayer money” for abortion.
There are signals that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and their “Department of Government Efficiency” will advise the administration to defund abortion, both by defunding Planned Parenthood in the United States and stopping foreign aid money going to international groups that commit or promote abortion. Trump has named a pro-lifer, Rep. Elise Stefanek as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. But he has also named the pro-abortion Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become Secretary of Health and Human Services, the federal department that most directly affects federal abortion policy. Members of Trump’s cabinet are subject to senate approval.
Campaign Life Coalition said in its December CLC National News that it hoped the appointment of Stefanek “means that a pro-life agenda will be advanced at the UN by the U.S.”
Campaign Life Coalition national president Jeff Gunnarson said that Trump’s first term, from 2017-2021 “made unprecedented gains for the global pro-life movement that are still being felt today.” He noted successes such as appointing three Supreme Court justices that helped overturn the infamous 1973 Roe decision and defunding international organizations that promote abortion.
At the state level, ten states had referenda on pro-abortion constitutional amendments; in the case of Nebraska, there was also a competing pro-life constitutional amendment, which won. States approving pro-abortion amendments included Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York. Trump won in four of those states – Arizona, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada. In Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New York, more than 60 per cent of voters backed the pro-abortion constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment in Missouri – passed with just under 52 per cent — will overturn Missouri’s pro-life law that bans abortion from conception with no rape or incest exception. Meanwhile, pro-lifers scored narrow victories in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Florida. The pro-abortion amendment in Florida garnered 57 per cent support but needed the backing of 60 per cent of voters to pass.
Meanwhile in West Virginia, a constitutional amendment stating ““No physician or health care provider in the State of West Virginia shall participate in the practice of medically-assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing” passed 50.5 per cent to 49.5.
