Trump campaign doesn’t shy away from abortion in Iowa radio ad

Former President Donald Trump‘s campaign is running radio ads in Iowa markets that champion his record on abortion in the aftermath of last week’s electoral losses for the GOP, among other conservative policies he has delivered on.

The ad is a signal that while abortion has proven to be a cudgel for Republicans, Trump may be able to sidestep the backlash, given his presidential record, which led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

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“Trump nominated conservative judges, leading to Roe v. Wade being overturned and returned to the states,” a female voice-over says in the ad. “Help make America great again. Caucus for President Trump on Jan. 15.”

Trump was indirectly responsible for the downfall of Roe, given that he nominated the three justices — Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett — who tilted the Supreme Court in a 6-3 conservative direction during his administration. But in the aftermath, the GOP has suffered several losses related to or directly because of public support of abortion access.

The most recent loss came during last week’s off-year elections. Voters in Ohio approved a ballot measure that enshrines access to abortion in the state’s constitution. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), who campaigned on passing a 15-week abortion restriction, suffered a loss when Virginia voters handed control of the state assembly to Democrats, effectively making Youngkin a lame-duck leader during the second half of his tenure.

Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) defeated Republican Daniel Cameron for a second term in office after he released a campaign ad of a woman detailing her rape at 12 years old and chastising Cameron for his anti-abortion stance.

Yet in Iowa, evangelical voters champion abortion restrictions, which Trump is seeking to capitalize on despite his refusal to embrace a federal abortion ban. The former president called a six-week abortion ban, which his top rival Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed into legislation, a “terrible mistake” in September. He hasn’t walked back those comments, nor has he lost support in polls among the Republican base, even when anti-abortion access advocates slammed his remarks.

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A RealClearPolitics poll average showed Trump besting all his 2024 rivals at 58.5% support, far above DeSantis at 14.4%. No other candidate polls in the double digits. In Iowa, a FiveThirtyEight poll average showed Trump leading the pack at 45.6%, DeSantis at 17.1%, and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley at 13.8%.

“Trump has already done a lot of things for anti-abortion voters. And that means that I think they’re more likely to take what he’s saying with a grain of salt and assume that he’s going to deliver for them when the chips are down anyway,” Mary Ziegler, a law professor who studies the politics of reproduction at the University of California, Davis, told the Washington Examiner. “He’s saying what he needs to say to get elected. I think there’s more of a belief there in part because people in the anti-abortion movement so much associate Trump with the end of Roe.”