Trump’s relationship with social conservatives was always nakedly transactional — a transaction that worked out (unlike many Trump deals) with both sides getting what they wanted — but the attitude Trump displays here seems likely to interfere with his future efforts to extend that transaction. If social conservatives back Trump next time, they won’t just be looking for judges. They’ll be looking for exactly the kind of stringent abortion restriction policies he’s now saying are political suicide.
That said, Trump is right that the party has gotten itself on the wrong end of a wedge issue, resulting in election losses.2 But he actually understates the damage the abortion issue caused. He implies pro-life turnout was weak, but there’s no good evidence for that — Republicans generally enjoyed a significant turnout advantage over Democrats last year — and so there’s no mass of demoralized pro-life voters to reactivate and turn out next time.
The key problem was persuasion. Too many persuadable voters decided Republican candidates were unacceptable, including because of their abortion stances — to neutralize the issue, Republicans will need more appealing, more moderate positions.
The problem is, what positions can those be?
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