When Joe Biden abandoned his lifelong support for limiting federal funding of abortion, the Democratic Party closed the door on millions of anti-abortion voters and donors, potentially pushing the most ardent into the arms of President Trump, who has emerged as the most anti-abortion president ever.
But now there’s a Democratic group trying to change that by raising money to draft an anti-abortion presidential candidate and force the party to address the issue and decide if social conservatives are welcome.
“The party has 20-plus candidates with identical, extreme positions on abortion. Yet if you look at polling, you’ll find that 1/4 to 1/3 of Democrats hold fairly mainstream pro-life views. Does the party have a message to them other than, ‘Sit down and shut up?’” asked Jacob Lupfer, an organizer of the new Pro-Life Democratic Candidate PAC.
We believe the best way to force this debate in the party, in the media, and in the pro-life movement is to draft a pro-life Democrat into the presidential nominating contest.
Support our effort here: https://t.co/PnvMMP6v38
— ?Pro-Life Dem Draft PAC (@ProLifeDem2020) June 20, 2019
Lupfer, a political consultant, said the group had hopes that it could lure anti-abortion Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia or Bob Casey of Pennsylvania into the race, but was rebuffed.
So now the group is focusing on retired military brass and black and Hispanic state lawmakers.
“We’re not going to get the big name,” he conceded.
But, he said, with so many Democrats holding anti-abortion views, there might be a base big enough for a drafted candidate to get into some of the early Democratic debates.
While draft PACs are typically designed to help a single candidate, the Pro-Life Democratic Candidate PAC is in search of a candidate. It has raised just $1,000 in its infancy and has a tiny volunteer staff.
Still, Lupfer said, if the PAC can land a candidate on the debate stage, “it will take off.”
The biggest concern of the group is that if Democrats move further left on abortion and away from any restrictions, anti-abortion party members will shift to Trump and hand him reelection.
“Is Planned Parenthood writing the party platform? The party is throwing us overboard,” said Lupfer.
This is why we need a pro-life Democrat in the 2020 primary debates. Someone has to save the party from going over the cliff, morally and politically. We can’t win on this platform. Sanity and sense at https://t.co/MVHZIyguTW. https://t.co/KIDRymVaWc
— ?Pro-Life Dem Draft PAC (@ProLifeDem2020) June 13, 2019
That was a point made in a Wall Street Journal column from Matt Hawkins, a former policy director for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Under the headline “Biden Gives Trump-Wary Pro-Lifers Nowhere to Hyde,” he wrote that Biden’s flip-flop on the Hyde Amendment to limit federal spending on abortions puts him in the extreme camp and will drive away independents and Republicans “uncomfortable” with Trump.
“When the news broke of Mr. Biden abandoning Hyde, I felt the collective groan of my evangelical friends. We frequently wrestle between voting our consciences and voting to get things done. There’s a growing bipartisan desire among evangelicals to assert human dignity across every issue, from abortion to immigration to criminal justice. Sadly, Mr. Biden has eliminated himself as a plausible safe harbor for those voters,” he wrote.
Penny Young Nance, president of the bipartisan Concerned Women for America, encouraged the new Democratic PAC and welcomed it to the anti-abortion fight. “We need pro-life Democrats to step forward and lead,” she said. “We want to encourage life.”
Based on recent elections, she said Democrats could lose Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to Trump again if their nominee is antagonistic to anti-abortion voters.
Lupfer agreed. “Democrats are really asking for trouble right now,” he said
