Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier sounded the alarm for Republicans on Tuesday, warning the party that they may be “going down the wrong road” electorally after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) proposed a nationwide abortion ban.
Despite recent polls and special-election results suggesting the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade has energized Democratic voters ahead of the midterms, Graham decided to introduce legislation on Tuesday federally outlawing abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Additionally, Graham opened himself and the GOP to accusations of hypocrisy as he previously claimed he believed abortion was an issue that should be left to individual states. To be fair, a number of Republicans have already tried to distance themselves from the bill.
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Appearing on Fox News mid-afternoon program America Reports, Baier and co-anchor John Roberts first suggested that recent polls possibly overstate Democrats’ current strength in congressional races.
“Democrats are polling well in exactly the places where the surveys missed the most in 2020,” Roberts noted, referencing a recent New York Times analysis of a possible “blue mirage” in polling. “He is suggesting the polling was off in 2020, off in 2016, and are just as off now in 2022.”
After largely agreeing with Roberts’ point, Baier was then asked by co-anchor Sandra Smith about the GOP’s chances heading into the midterms, especially since inflation is still a major issue following Tuesday’s worse-than-expected economic report.
“What is it that Republicans are not getting right when you have so much going wrong?” Smith wondered.
“I think the inflation story is really big,” Baier reacted. “I think this report is really heinous overall, and if you think about what people feel at the kitchen table, this is it.”
At the same time, though, the veteran Fox News anchor noted that the Republican push for nationwide abortion restrictions could backfire on them in the midterms.
“I do think the Dobbs case and the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade had a big effect on independents and women in particular—and suburban voting areas especially,” Baier declared. “And now with Sen. Graham’s effort, it is raising eyebrows about—are Republicans going down the wrong road with the nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks, after saying it’s up to the states in the wake of Dobbs?”
“There is some leeway there for Democrats,” he added. “They are going to pounce on that.” Indeed, not only has Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted the Republicans’ bill, but the White House has also already taken aim at Graham.
Roberts, meanwhile, observed that “Democrats have leveraged” the Roe reversal and seen a surge of voter registration among women in key battleground states.
“The Republicans have not had an effective response to that,” he continued. “Can they now, with inflation remaining high and higher than forecast to be… can they leverage that economic message in a way that overrides the Dobbs message from the Democrats?”
Calling it the “question of November,” Baier said that while the GOP is making inflation their electoral message right now, Democrats spent Tuesday talking about Graham’s bill.
“I think the premise of Sen. Graham was to say, put a 15-week number on it so that you could have some candidates that say, ‘I sign on to this. Democrats, do you sign on to abortion after 15 weeks?’ And then turn the tables,” he concluded. “I’m not sure it’s working like that today on this first day of that bill coming out or him talking about it.”
