Abortion is becoming a pivotal issue
It did not take Sara Gideon long to leverage Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on abortion in her race against Sen. Susan Collins.
When Collins, R-Maine, cast a decisive vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, she did so on the premise that he would uphold precedent to preserve abortion rights. But Monday, Kavanaugh dissented from a decision that did that, arguing that the court should have ruled differently than it did in a nearly identical case four years ago.
“Do you still think Brett Kavanaugh believes Roe v. Wade is settled law, @SenSusanCollins?” Gideon tweeted.
Collins, a rare Republican who supports abortion rights, is facing the most difficult campaign of her more than 20-year Senate career, in large part as a result of her vote to confirm Kavanaugh. The new ruling has taken what may be one of her biggest vulnerabilities and put it squarely at the center of public attention.
She is not alone: The court’s ruling, which struck down a Louisiana law that could have left the state with just a single abortion clinic, reverberated rapidly through Washington and beyond, adding a new focus on one of the most divisive issues in U.S. politics to the critical Senate races that will determine which party controls the chamber in 2021.
“Everyone who voted wrong, we’re coming for you,” tweeted Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, naming Collins and four other Republican senators: Cory
Gardner of Colorado, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Within a few hours, NARAL had released a video compilation of Collins’ assertions that Kavanaugh would adhere to precedent.
A spokesman for Collins’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Collins, Gardner and Tillis are seen as three of the most vulnerable Republicans in the Senate. And Ernst’s and Graham’s seats, while nowhere near as competitive, have become more so than they were a few months ago as President Donald Trump’s popularity has eroded.
“Republican leaders will continue to go after the rights of women and anyone seeking reproductive care to make decisions about their own bodies, their own families, and their own futures,” top Democratic National Committee members said in a joint statement.
“In fact, two of today’s votes against abortion rights came from Trump’s Supreme Court appointees, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Democrats are doing everything in our power to flip the Senate, defeat Donald Trump, and make sure Roe remains the law of the land.”
Nearly all sitting Republican senators voted to confirm Kavanaugh
A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee said that the party “values the life and health of both the mother and the unborn baby” and sought to use upset over the ruling to drive turnout in the fall.
Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority.