President Trump on Friday became the first chief executive to address the March for Life in person, a significant event that is likely to have more of an impact on his chances at reelection than the impeachment trial happening across town.
Though we don’t yet have polling to indicate how the Senate trial is affecting public opinion, to date, the Ukraine story has barely made a dent in Trump’s approval rating since it broke in September. Support for removing Trump from office has been highly correlated with general disapproval of his presidency. With the Senate expected to acquit Trump within the next few weeks, it’s highly unlikely that impeachment will have much of an effect on his reelection one way or another.
But here’s why his speech to the March for Life matters.
Given Trump’s relatively low approval rating (in the mid-40s), he’s going to be heavily dependent on his ability to fire up the base of the Republican Party, particularly in key swing states, and particularly on cultural issues.
As it is, there’s a good case to be made that the Supreme Court vacancy, and the prospect that Trump would appoint a conservative to fill it, is what ultimately decided the election for Trump in 2016. There were many conservatives, particularly religious conservatives, who were initially reluctant to vote for Trump. They didn’t know how sincerely to take his promises as a one time pro-choicer. But ultimately, the calculation many of them made was: Whatever the risk posed by a potential Trump betrayal, their chances of getting policies and judges they wanted was a lot higher than the 0% chance they’d have under Hillary Clinton.
Now, however, there is no doubt about Trump. He already has a strong case to make that as a result of both the judges he’s appointed and policies he’s pursued at the agency level, he’s the most pro-life president in history. His speech helped cement his legacy.
The importance of the signal that Trump was sending with his appearance at Friday’s march cannot be overstated. Even George W. Bush, somebody deeply religious who was believed to have sincere convictions on the pro-life issue, chose to continue Ronald Reagan’s tradition of phoning in to the march or delivering remarks by proxy. That reflected a certain desire to keep the anti-abortion movement at arm’s length.
But Trump was willing to come out in the open and signal he is not at all embarrassed by the activists who flock to Washington every year to fight for the lives of the unborn. He’s with them. In 2020, there will be no leap of faith for pro-lifers who vote primarily on the abortion issue. They will not just support Trump passively, but they are much more likely to turn out and to volunteer for his campaign. From a political standpoint, this was a very effective bit of counterprogramming.
