Free Press analyst: Abortion did not mobilize voters, biological males in women’s sports did
Caroline MolloyAn analyst at the Free Press recently explained that Republicans picked the winning women’s rights issue in the 2024 election, successfully campaigning on keeping biological males out of female sports while the Democrats’ strategy of promoting unrestricted abortion failed.
Madeleine Kearns wrote in the Free Press November 7 that the Democrats’ “big bet” on abortion rights did not pay off.
“Not only was abortion a flop with the electorate, it was Republicans — not Democrats — who pushed the winning women’s-rights issue: fighting the encroachment of biological men into women’s spaces and sports,” she said.
Kearns pointed out that even though Trump compromised his pro-life stance, which upset pro-life voters, he still won their vote due to Harris’ radical positions, which included forcing Catholic hospitals to perform abortions and allowing doctors to deny life-saving care to children who survive abortion procedures.
“Harris’s lack of clarity or compromise on abortion had a stunning effect: In 2020, Trump had a 45-point lead over Biden among voters who say abortion should be ‘illegal in most cases,’” Kearns explained. “This year he won them by 85 points.”
Kearns continued, “Meanwhile, the Republicans adopted a pro-woman stance that resonated widely with the electorate: a ban on male transgender athletes participating in female sports. And they pushed a pro-parent policy, too: barring ‘gender-affirming care’ for distressed minors.”
