With a year to go to the next presidential election, American voters went to the ballots on Tuesday, November 7th to elect everything from the proverbial dog catcher to governors and other state officials.
The outcome, seen by many as a bellwether for next year’s election, was in many ways a disappointment for conservatives. But on the one occasion where abortion was an issue, it was also a signal that Christianity is still alive and influential in America.
Conservatism, on the other hand, has a problem. As a movement, it is unfocused and needs to learn to bridge the gap between establishing theory and making a real-world difference.
Many commentators have dismissed the state and local election outcomes on November 7th as a resounding defeat for conservatism. Some have even characterized it as an exhibit of the waning influence of Christianity on American life. While the former point has merit to it, the latter simply is not true.
Let us start with the conservatives and keep them separate from Christians. Normally, this distinction does not make much sense, especially not in an American context, but it does have merit here.
In terms of election results, conservatives did about as well as they deserved. There were a couple of noteworthy victories. A conservative-leaning Republican won a symbolically important seat on the board of Suffolk County in New York. This county, which is on Long Island, now has an all-Republican government, as does its neighboring Nassau County. All four U.S. representatives from these counties are also Republican.
This victory is part of a slow but compelling growth of conservatism in New York. Nobody should expect the Empire State to ‘flip Republican’ any time soon, but there is no doubt that more and more New Yorkers believe that the Left has overstayed its welcome. While not related to elections this past Thursday, it is nevertheless worth noting that Democrat-led Connecticut, which borders New York, has adopted downright Republican tax policies. This is part of a response to an electorate that is glacially but inevitably moving right.
Tuesday also delivered a Republican victory in Mississippi, where Governor Tate Reeves was re-elected. In Kentucky, voters gave Michael Adams the victory for Secretary of State by more than a 60-40 margin over his Democrat opponent. In the race for the state’s Attorney General, Republican Russell Coleman defeated Democrat Pamela Stevenson 58-42.
Many commentators have lamented the fact that Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won re-election as Kentucky governor. However, not only was his margin relatively small—only five percentage points—but he has also made a name for himself as a centrist, not leftist, governor. Those who see this as a conservative defeat forget that states leaning heavily toward one party often elect governors from the opposite party. Ronald Reagan, a Republican, governed California from 1967 to 1975; Ann Richards, a famous Democrat, was the governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995; Republican Chris Christie served as Governor of heavily Democratic New Jersey from 2011 to 2019.
Dave Freudenthal is a less-known example. Starting in 2002, the Democrat was elected to two consecutive terms as governor of Wyoming, one of the most conservative states in America.
While winning in New York, Mississippi, and Kentucky, conservatives should rightfully be concerned about the Republican losses in Virginia, where voters reaffirmed a Democrat State Senate majority and stripped Republicans of their State House majority. It remains to be seen what this means in practice for the fights over policy issues in the state, but highly symbolic fights over social issues—primarily transgender issues in the schools—have not paid off as conservatives expected.
The one issue where conservatives took a big beating was the abortion vote in Ohio. Voters in the Buckeye State approved a ballot measure to establish abortion as a right protected by the state’s constitution.
Conservatives lost this vote—but Christians did not. The conservative loss is a direct result of the strategy that they tend to use in politics. Far too often when conservatives push for policy reform, they leap for ‘everything’ in one chunk, instead of aiming for gradual progress toward a longer-term goal. The abortion issue is a case in point; by taking an all-or-nothing attitude on this matter, conservatives cut themselves off from more centrist-oriented voters who could be valuable allies.
At the same time, there was a Christian value victory embedded in the lead-up to the Ohio vote. Let us listen to Senator J.D. Vance, a Republican from Ohio:
I’ve seen dozens of good polls on the abortion question in the last few months, many of them done in Ohio. Give people a choice between abortion restrictions very early in pregnancy with exceptions, or the pro choice position, and the pro life view has a fighting chance. Give people a heartbeat bill with no exceptions and it loses 65-35.
In other words, there is an underlying desire among large voter segments—exactly in accordance with Christian values—to protect life. The preference for exceptions, which Senator Vance points to, is not an affront to Christian values, but an expression of compassion for women who suffer deeply in one way or another.
By making the all-or-nothing mistake, activists from the right in American politics often overlook such nuances as Senator Vance points to. He does not approach this issue from a Christian viewpoint—let us return to that aspect in a moment—but instead cites President Trump’s pragmatic approach to abortion. Conservatives, he says, are too often unwilling to find a middle ground with non-conservatives.
This is not always true, of course. The pro-life bill that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year combined stringent limits on abortion with exceptions that should be tolerable beyond devout pro-life circles. But the problem upstream from the legislative process remains: conservatives have difficulties rallying voters behind pro-life legislation precisely because they make it an all-or-nothing issue.
Senator Vance alludes to this in his comment on X, when he points out that
we’ve spent so much time winning a legal argument on abortion that we’ve fallen behind on the moral argument. I talked to so many decent people who voted yes on Issue 1 [for abortion in Ohio] and their reasons varied. Some described themselves as “pro life” but hated the lack of a rape exception in Ohio law. Some were worried that Ohio law would prevent them from addressing an ectopic pregnancy, or a late term miscarriage.
In short, the senator wants the pro-life movement to distinguish between abortions for lifestyle reasons and those where compassion for the mother is involved.
For good reasons, it is hard for us pro-lifers to make any distinction between different types of abortions. All baby lives matter; one abortion is no less painful for the baby than the other.
At the same time, there is a strong element of compassion and charitability in American society, stronger than in any other country. The tradition of caring for those in need, and making personal sacrifices in doing so, is both deeply rooted and very much alive in America today.
One has to understand this in order to comprehend the abortion vote in Ohio. The affirmation of abortion as a right under the state constitution was not an approval of abortion as a lifestyle choice. Per Senator Vance’s account, it was an expression of a conflict of compassion between, on the one hand, a desire to save as many baby lives as possible and, on the other hand, a desire to help women who suffer tremendously.
Governor Beshear credits his re-election in part to an ad where he presented the case of a 12-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather. There are, of course, alternatives to abortions, in this case as in every other, but conservatives were not able to articulate those in a way that could win over those, whose compassion for the 12-year-old girl trumped their compassion for the baby she was carrying.
That compassion may not be rational—it pins the mother against the baby—but it is founded in Christian belief. This lack of rationality is carried over into the political arena, where
- Abortion proponents eliminate the baby from the equation, which does not resonate with pro-lifers; while
- Pro-life conservatives are unconvincing in their attempts to elevate the baby and the mother to the same moral level.
The solution here is to allow Christian compassion to gradually transform legislation. Conservatives can do this by acknowledging that if we can end lifestyle abortions, we have made progress. We can then let one step toward a stronger pro-life presence in legislation and our daily lives be followed by more steps in the future.
We will not save all babies at once, but over time we will save more babies. This is the idea behind the pro-life bill that Governor DeSantis signed into law last year.
If the pro-life movement in America does not take the gradualist lesson to heart, there will be more setbacks like Ohio—or Kansas, where last year voters rejected a pro-life leaning constitutional amendment.
The Kansas case illustrates clearly one of the senator’s main points, namely that conservatives are more interested in legislative bill drafting than in bringing their issue to voters. While an exaggeration in my experience, there is a grain of truth in this point, especially when we look at how it was handled in Kansas.
When Kansans went to the polls last year, they were faced with a seriously complicated abortion-related ballot text. It had been drafted by pro-life activists, whose focus was unquestionably on legislative technicalities, not electorate outreach. Voters could choose to either support or reject the Value Them Both Amendment, the salient point of which stated that “the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.”
On the ballot itself, it said that a vote for the amendment
would affirm there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion or to require the government funding of abortion, and would reserve to the people of Kansas, through their elected state legislators, the right to pass laws to regulate abortion.
By contrast, a vote against the amendment
would make no changes to the constitution of the state of Kansas, and could restrict the people, through their elected state legislators, from regulating abortion by leaving in place the recently recognized right to abortion.
If you want to limit abortions, which alternative is yours? The first one affirms, like the amendment text itself, that there is no constitutional right to abortion. However, it does not ban the legislature and the governor from enacting statutes affirming abortion rights of any kind, including—in a hypothetical extreme—the right to post-birth abortion, i.e., infanticide.
The second alternative does not add the Value Them Both Amendment to the Kansas constitution, but just like the first alternative it leaves the door open for statutory initiatives to protect or expand abortion rights.
The amendment failed. If it had passed, all it would have done is to make explicit what is already a fact: there is neither a constitutional right to nor a constitutional ban on abortion in Kansas.
Kansas advocates of babies’ right to life fought hard to get this amendment passed. Given what small a difference the amendment would have made—to prevent a future Ohio-style constitutional amendment—there is only one conclusion to draw from the pro-life efforts: they were a waste of time already from the start.
Sadly, the Kansas experience exemplifies well what Senator Vance refers to, namely that conservatives, consumed by their all-or-nothing ambition, often let go of pragmatism and instead drown in legislative minutia. To win, they need to be out among voters and connect with the sense of Christian compassion that is widespread, alive, and well among Americans in general.
America: Still A Christian Nation
Photo: Philip Yabut / Shutterstock.com
With a year to go to the next presidential election, American voters went to the ballots on Tuesday, November 7th to elect everything from the proverbial dog catcher to governors and other state officials.
The outcome, seen by many as a bellwether for next year’s election, was in many ways a disappointment for conservatives. But on the one occasion where abortion was an issue, it was also a signal that Christianity is still alive and influential in America.
Conservatism, on the other hand, has a problem. As a movement, it is unfocused and needs to learn to bridge the gap between establishing theory and making a real-world difference.
Many commentators have dismissed the state and local election outcomes on November 7th as a resounding defeat for conservatism. Some have even characterized it as an exhibit of the waning influence of Christianity on American life. While the former point has merit to it, the latter simply is not true.
Let us start with the conservatives and keep them separate from Christians. Normally, this distinction does not make much sense, especially not in an American context, but it does have merit here.
In terms of election results, conservatives did about as well as they deserved. There were a couple of noteworthy victories. A conservative-leaning Republican won a symbolically important seat on the board of Suffolk County in New York. This county, which is on Long Island, now has an all-Republican government, as does its neighboring Nassau County. All four U.S. representatives from these counties are also Republican.
This victory is part of a slow but compelling growth of conservatism in New York. Nobody should expect the Empire State to ‘flip Republican’ any time soon, but there is no doubt that more and more New Yorkers believe that the Left has overstayed its welcome. While not related to elections this past Thursday, it is nevertheless worth noting that Democrat-led Connecticut, which borders New York, has adopted downright Republican tax policies. This is part of a response to an electorate that is glacially but inevitably moving right.
Tuesday also delivered a Republican victory in Mississippi, where Governor Tate Reeves was re-elected. In Kentucky, voters gave Michael Adams the victory for Secretary of State by more than a 60-40 margin over his Democrat opponent. In the race for the state’s Attorney General, Republican Russell Coleman defeated Democrat Pamela Stevenson 58-42.
Many commentators have lamented the fact that Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won re-election as Kentucky governor. However, not only was his margin relatively small—only five percentage points—but he has also made a name for himself as a centrist, not leftist, governor. Those who see this as a conservative defeat forget that states leaning heavily toward one party often elect governors from the opposite party. Ronald Reagan, a Republican, governed California from 1967 to 1975; Ann Richards, a famous Democrat, was the governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995; Republican Chris Christie served as Governor of heavily Democratic New Jersey from 2011 to 2019.
Dave Freudenthal is a less-known example. Starting in 2002, the Democrat was elected to two consecutive terms as governor of Wyoming, one of the most conservative states in America.
While winning in New York, Mississippi, and Kentucky, conservatives should rightfully be concerned about the Republican losses in Virginia, where voters reaffirmed a Democrat State Senate majority and stripped Republicans of their State House majority. It remains to be seen what this means in practice for the fights over policy issues in the state, but highly symbolic fights over social issues—primarily transgender issues in the schools—have not paid off as conservatives expected.
The one issue where conservatives took a big beating was the abortion vote in Ohio. Voters in the Buckeye State approved a ballot measure to establish abortion as a right protected by the state’s constitution.
Conservatives lost this vote—but Christians did not. The conservative loss is a direct result of the strategy that they tend to use in politics. Far too often when conservatives push for policy reform, they leap for ‘everything’ in one chunk, instead of aiming for gradual progress toward a longer-term goal. The abortion issue is a case in point; by taking an all-or-nothing attitude on this matter, conservatives cut themselves off from more centrist-oriented voters who could be valuable allies.
At the same time, there was a Christian value victory embedded in the lead-up to the Ohio vote. Let us listen to Senator J.D. Vance, a Republican from Ohio:
In other words, there is an underlying desire among large voter segments—exactly in accordance with Christian values—to protect life. The preference for exceptions, which Senator Vance points to, is not an affront to Christian values, but an expression of compassion for women who suffer deeply in one way or another.
By making the all-or-nothing mistake, activists from the right in American politics often overlook such nuances as Senator Vance points to. He does not approach this issue from a Christian viewpoint—let us return to that aspect in a moment—but instead cites President Trump’s pragmatic approach to abortion. Conservatives, he says, are too often unwilling to find a middle ground with non-conservatives.
This is not always true, of course. The pro-life bill that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year combined stringent limits on abortion with exceptions that should be tolerable beyond devout pro-life circles. But the problem upstream from the legislative process remains: conservatives have difficulties rallying voters behind pro-life legislation precisely because they make it an all-or-nothing issue.
Senator Vance alludes to this in his comment on X, when he points out that
In short, the senator wants the pro-life movement to distinguish between abortions for lifestyle reasons and those where compassion for the mother is involved.
For good reasons, it is hard for us pro-lifers to make any distinction between different types of abortions. All baby lives matter; one abortion is no less painful for the baby than the other.
At the same time, there is a strong element of compassion and charitability in American society, stronger than in any other country. The tradition of caring for those in need, and making personal sacrifices in doing so, is both deeply rooted and very much alive in America today.
One has to understand this in order to comprehend the abortion vote in Ohio. The affirmation of abortion as a right under the state constitution was not an approval of abortion as a lifestyle choice. Per Senator Vance’s account, it was an expression of a conflict of compassion between, on the one hand, a desire to save as many baby lives as possible and, on the other hand, a desire to help women who suffer tremendously.
Governor Beshear credits his re-election in part to an ad where he presented the case of a 12-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather. There are, of course, alternatives to abortions, in this case as in every other, but conservatives were not able to articulate those in a way that could win over those, whose compassion for the 12-year-old girl trumped their compassion for the baby she was carrying.
That compassion may not be rational—it pins the mother against the baby—but it is founded in Christian belief. This lack of rationality is carried over into the political arena, where
The solution here is to allow Christian compassion to gradually transform legislation. Conservatives can do this by acknowledging that if we can end lifestyle abortions, we have made progress. We can then let one step toward a stronger pro-life presence in legislation and our daily lives be followed by more steps in the future.
We will not save all babies at once, but over time we will save more babies. This is the idea behind the pro-life bill that Governor DeSantis signed into law last year.
If the pro-life movement in America does not take the gradualist lesson to heart, there will be more setbacks like Ohio—or Kansas, where last year voters rejected a pro-life leaning constitutional amendment.
The Kansas case illustrates clearly one of the senator’s main points, namely that conservatives are more interested in legislative bill drafting than in bringing their issue to voters. While an exaggeration in my experience, there is a grain of truth in this point, especially when we look at how it was handled in Kansas.
When Kansans went to the polls last year, they were faced with a seriously complicated abortion-related ballot text. It had been drafted by pro-life activists, whose focus was unquestionably on legislative technicalities, not electorate outreach. Voters could choose to either support or reject the Value Them Both Amendment, the salient point of which stated that “the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.”
On the ballot itself, it said that a vote for the amendment
By contrast, a vote against the amendment
If you want to limit abortions, which alternative is yours? The first one affirms, like the amendment text itself, that there is no constitutional right to abortion. However, it does not ban the legislature and the governor from enacting statutes affirming abortion rights of any kind, including—in a hypothetical extreme—the right to post-birth abortion, i.e., infanticide.
The second alternative does not add the Value Them Both Amendment to the Kansas constitution, but just like the first alternative it leaves the door open for statutory initiatives to protect or expand abortion rights.
The amendment failed. If it had passed, all it would have done is to make explicit what is already a fact: there is neither a constitutional right to nor a constitutional ban on abortion in Kansas.
Kansas advocates of babies’ right to life fought hard to get this amendment passed. Given what small a difference the amendment would have made—to prevent a future Ohio-style constitutional amendment—there is only one conclusion to draw from the pro-life efforts: they were a waste of time already from the start.
Sadly, the Kansas experience exemplifies well what Senator Vance refers to, namely that conservatives, consumed by their all-or-nothing ambition, often let go of pragmatism and instead drown in legislative minutia. To win, they need to be out among voters and connect with the sense of Christian compassion that is widespread, alive, and well among Americans in general.
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