‘Not Going to Put Up with Pro-Abortion Activists’: GOP Primaries Show Voters Want Pro-Life Values

Primary season is winding down across the country, and experts are urging Republicans to remember that pro-life values are key to differentiate the GOP from the pro-abortion Democratic Party. “I would say if you were on the pro-abortion side or you were an anti-Semite … you had a bad night,” quipped FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter on Wednesday night’s “Washington Watch,” referring to Tuesday’s primary races.

Carpenter pointed especially to a state senate runoff race in South Carolina as evidence of Republican voters backing pro-life candidates. “South Carolina’s Senate runoff election was actually the third pro-choice, pro-abortion Republican in the South Carolina Senate to go down,” he explained. “A few of them had filibustered legislation that would have protected unborn life in South Carolina from the moment of conception. And they went down to pro-life challengers, all three of them. … So South Carolina Republican primary voters are sending a very clear signal last night that they’re not going to put up with pro-abortion activists.”

Carpenter and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins also noted that pro-life values are crucial in distinguishing Republicans from Democrats and motivating voters. “Pro-lifers showed up there” in South Carolina, Carpenter said, “pro-life organizations on the ground, knocking on doors, getting out the vote. They won close elections.” He added, “One of the pro-abortion Republicans went down by a 65-point margin. … It’s clear, I think, the Republican base wants that pro-life contrast. They want their voices represented in support of life with their representatives.”

Perkins observed that former President Barack Obama recognized that when “the parties are very divergent in their views on these issues, that every election is a base election. It’s about that intensity.” He added, “And when there’s clarity on the issues, like there was in South Carolina, that creates that intensity for people to engage — not just go and vote, but to knock on doors, make phone calls, and talk to their friends.”

“You have to have that contrast. As you point out, in 2012, we saw that split. Barack Obama capitalized on an active Democratic base to deliver majorities in Congress for him to win reelection,” Carpenter agreed. “And so I think conservatives, Republicans need to take that lesson to heart as well and look at the pro-life issue as a motivating factor for their base.”

Another primary race of interest took place in New York’s 16th congressional district. “Two-term squad member Jamaal Bowman went down in defeat, and generally incumbents have a 94%, 95% win rate. They almost never lose,” Carpenter explained. “And if they do lose, it’s a close election. Well, Bowman went down by almost 20 points. He went down by 17 points. That is a sea change there.”

As a member of the ultra-progressive “squad,” Bowman has joined such House representatives as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) in failing to condemn the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas. Notably, Bowman was one of only nine Democrats (including five fellow “squad” members) to vote against a House resolution condemning Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

“So in dark-blue, metropolitan New York, Democrat voters sending a strong message to, I think, their party saying, ‘We’re fed up with pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic members representing us,’” Carpenter commented. “So it was good to see Jamaal Bowman, I think, send that message and go down in defeat. Hopefully, others in the squad take note.”