Trump, Who Got Roe Overturned, Blames Midterms Loss on Abortion

Former President Donald Trump defended himself against accusations that his boosting of far-right election deniers cost the GOP dearly in the midterms—saying that actually, the blame lies with the crowd of conservatives that pushed for abortion restrictions with no exceptions for rape or incest. 

Even though, as it turns out, many in Trump’s army of election deniers were also anti-abortion hardliners. 

“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday.

“I was 233-20!” Trump wrote, referring to his record on endorsements. “It was the ​‘abortion issue,​’​ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters​.”

Trump went on to further attack anti-abortion advocates, suggesting that they didn’t show up for Republicans after Trump and Senate Republicans delivered the Supreme Court votes necessary to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

“The people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again,” Trump said. Adding a dig at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been accused of withholding campaign funds from Trump endorsees like Blake Masters in Arizona, Trump said: “Plus, Mitch stupid $’s!”

During the 2022 cycle, Trump routinely and repeatedly attacked Republicans who failed to say that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and implored his allies to make election fraud claims central to their 2022 campaigns. Trump scolded Masters following an October debate for not saying the election results were tampered with, saying the Senate nominee was “going soft” and comparing him unfavorably to Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake.

Both Masters and Lake lost their races, as Sen. Mark Kelly was re-elected and Arizonans elected Democrats, including Gov. Katie Hobbs, to their top three constitutional offices. 

But in addition to being an election denier, Masters also described himself as “100 percent pro-life” during the primary, and backed proposed legislation from top Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham to ban abortion after 15 weeks nationwide. 

Democrats narrowly lost the House in November, but picked up a Senate seat and made huge gains at the state level. Though pundits had predicted that inflation would drive voters to or from the polls in November, exit polling showed that abortion was one of the top issues motivating voters. Young voters also skewed even more Democratic than they did in 2020, according to ABC News—helping to mitigate losses for the party in power. 

Trump also endorsed several other Senate nominees who supported the proposed federal abortion ban, including now-Sens. Ted Budd of North Carolina and J.D. Vance of Ohio, who won, and Georgia candidate Herschel Walker, who lost. 

And in Washington, Trump endorsed Joe Kent, a Republican House candidate in Washington, who then successfully knocked pro-impeachment GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler out of the top-two primary over the summer. 

His general election opponent, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, made Kent’s far-right views on the 2020 election and abortion part of her campaign strategy, calling him a “danger to democracy” and attacking Kent during a debate for calling abortion rights “performative.” Kent, who opposed abortion in all cases except to save the life of a mother, lost in a district that Trump won easily, and that Republicans had held for over a decade.

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