Dems wanted to talk about abortion. Who knew they were this bad at it?

Democrats rode into the 2022 midterm election year in an especially vulnerable Humvee. What they had was the deus ex machina of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, so they went with it. Gratuitously. “From rural Wisconsin Trump country to California’s heavily Catholic Central Valley,” Politico reported at the beginning of October, “there’s almost no place where Democrats think an abortion rights-focused message won’t play.” Democrats pushed all their chips in on the notion that Republicans’ views on abortion are out of step with those of the American people. The move rested on the assumption that Democrats’ approach to the issue was unassailable.

And that dubious assumption is being put to the test. In interview after interview, Democrats in contested races are neutralizing the GOP’s disadvantages on abortion by exposing their own views on the subject.