With midterm elections looming, the GOP has focused much attention on maintaining its razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives. While President Donald Trump and his allies have pushed for Republican-controlled states to aggressively redistrict and net the GOP extra House seats, a new survey is suggesting that the efforts may be for nought if the Trump administration and congressional Republicans don’t act decisively to regulate the remote prescription and shipping of the abortion drug mifepristone.
According to a February 17 memo from polling and data analytics firm Cygnal, GOP leaders risk severely dampening midterm enthusiasm and voter base turnout if they retreat from key pro-life positions. “GOP primary voters are overwhelmingly committed to pro-life principles, but frustrated with federal health agencies’ abortion policies under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Cygnal pollster and senior partner John Rogers wrote. “The national data show a significant disconnect between base Republican voter expectations and current federal actions, creating real enthusiasm risks for the November midterm general election.”
One of the chief points of contention is the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) failure to restore previous safeguards surrounding the abortion drug. Cygnal found that over 70% of Republican primary voters oppose the present mifepristone regulations, which allow the drug to be prescribed and dispensed remotely and sent via mail or courier. That share is even higher among self-described “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Republicans (76%) and Trump Republicans (77%).
Overall, 80% of Republican voters (including 84% of Trump Republicans and 85% of MAHA Republicans) want the FDA to restore in-person requirements for the prescribing and dispensing of mifepristone, 71% (including 77% of Trump Republicans and 76% of MAHA Republicans) oppose allowing the abortion drug to be prescribed remotely and mailed, 74% say that allowing mifepristone to be mailed across state lines undermines red states with pro-life laws in place, and 72% (including 73% of Trump Republicans and 74% of MAHA Republicans) oppose the FDA’s approval of a generic version of mifepristone.
Additionally, the GOP’s “pro-life base remains solid,” Cygnal’s survey found: 86% of Republican primary voters oppose federal tax dollars being used to fund abortions, 79% want to keep the Hyde Amendment, 75% support defunding Planned Parenthood, 71% want a future Republican presidential candidate to “clearly articulate a pro-life policy agenda to drive down the number of abortions,” and 65% oppose “the overall HHS direction on abortion,” including the generic mifepristone expansion and delaying a promised safety review on mifepristone. Rogers wrote, “This is not a marginal constituency, it is the GOP primary core.”
Only one fifth of surveyed Republican voters were aware that abortions have actually increased since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which reversed Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, effectively eliminating federal protections for abortion. “Republican voters likely expected that Dobbs would lead to fewer abortions and certainly expected that the leaders around President Trump would work hard to extend pro-life protections everywhere possible in the federal government,” Rogers observed in his memo. “Instead, under Secretary Kennedy, HHS is actively facilitating access to the chemical abortion drug mifepristone.”
According to Cygnal’s survey, the Trump administration’s inaction on abortion is “creating fractures in the GOP base,” causing a “trust crisis” and threatening to cripple voter enthusiasm and turnout in the midterms if unaddressed. If Republican leaders “weaken or abandon pro-life policies,” the survey results warned, nearly one third (32%) of Republican voters (including nearly 40% of the “most engaged” Republican voters) said that they will have decreased enthusiasm for voting and over one third (34%, including almost 40% of the “most engaged” voters and 45% of evangelicals) said that they would be less willing to volunteer or campaign for Republican general election candidates.
“A diminution in enthusiasm among one-third of the Republican base would be devastating in close U.S. House and U.S. Senate races in November,” Rogers warned. Furthermore, were the GOP to weaken its commitment to the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal taxpayer dollars from being used to pay for abortions in the U.S., 30% of Republican voters said that they will be less enthusiastic about voting in November, while nearly 80% of Republican voters said that they consider the Hyde Amendment to be “important.”
In comments to The Washington Stand, Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, suggested that a stronger pro-life stance from Republican leaders would likely inspire confidence among Republican voters. “With mid-term elections on the horizon, it would be helpful for the Trump administration to deliver a major pro-life win reminding Americans that the Trump administration is the most pro-life administration in history,” Szoch asserted. “Democrats are the party of abortion on demand, paid for by taxpayers, through the entirety of pregnancy. Pro-lifers cannot allow Democrats to triumph in the midterm elections. We must come out and vote for life — and a recent pro-life win will help encourage pro-lifers to do so.”
Since pro-life laws began taking effect in red states in 2022, the lax guidelines surrounding mifepristone have allowed blue states where abortion is legal — and, in many cases, even protected abortionists via “shield laws” from prosecution — to ship mifepristone across state lines and into red states, violating those states’ pro-life laws. In the absence of more stringent safeguards and in-person dispensing requirements from the FDA, a growing number of Republican-led states have enacted or moved to enact provisions empowering citizens to sue out-of-state abortionists for violating state pro-life laws, effectively circumventing blue state “shield laws.”
Louisiana has also led 21 other states in a lawsuit to compel the FDA to restore in-person prescribing and dispensing requirements for the abortion drug, although the Trump administration has asked to have the lawsuit dismissed.
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S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
