Some hardcore wingnuts lost yesterday. But that won’t stop the race to the right.
For all the talk about JD Vance, the good news is that some of the fringiest fring were turned out yesterday in Indiana and Ohio. Unfortunately, plans to harshly restrict abortion is still on the menu. Bolt magazine reports on some down ballot races last night in Indiana and Ohio:
Two Republican legislators who led recent efforts in Indiana to champion hard-right policies, including serving as the chief authors of legislation to fully ban abortion, lost their reelection bids in GOP primaries on Tuesday.
State Representatives John Jacob and Curt Nisly were among a large slate of far-right candidates running on Tuesday in Indiana, as part of a confrontation between the already-conservative GOP establishment and advocates who were angry at COVID-19 regulations and what they saw as an insufficiently aggressive approach to transforming the state into a conservative haven.
Nearly all non-incumbent candidates who ran as part of this far-right takeover effort lost as well, alongside Jacob and Nisly.
But the results do not shake hardline conservatives’ hold on the mainstream of GOP politics. The Indiana legislature, which is run by the Republican leaders who clashed with Jacob and Nisly, appears likely to adopt new anti-abortion bills in months ahead.
A similar dynamic played out in Ohio. Former Republican lawmaker John Adams, who ran for secretary of state by touting the Big Lie, the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, lost by a large margin on Tuesday to incumbent Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who pushed back against Trump in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election. This was the first secretary of state election this year featuring a Big Lie candidate, though Adams never caught fire like some of his counterparts in other states.
But LaRose’s victory hardly reflects a last stand by moderate forces. He has himself ramped up talk of voter fraud over the past year, and his tenure has included numerous clashes with voting rights groups over restrictions to ballot access.
[…]
Jacob and Nisly joined forces in January 2021 as the main sponsors of House Bill 1539, which sought to ban abortion in Indiana; Jacob was already known for protesting abortion rights at the statehouse wearing red-stained medical scrubs and a partially dismembered child’s doll prior to his election in 2020. Both lawmakers lost one day after Politico reported that a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court had voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
Also in January 2021, in the aftermath of Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, Jacob and Nisly also introduced a bill to extensively review voting machines and introduce new restrictions on how elections are run.
Jacob also has a history of staunchly discriminatory comments, including public remarks disparaging Catholics and Muslims.
While neither of Jacob and Nisly’s bills has advanced, new laws that curtail reproductive rights in Indiana could pass later this year.
The legislature’s GOP leaders have said that, if the court rules against Roe, they would likely meet in a special session to advance anti-abortion laws. Republican Governor Eric Holcomb has not said whether he will call a special session, and observers say the 2022 elections could shape what final legislation looks like. But Holcomb has signed many laws that restrict abortion during his tenure, including in 2018, 2021, and 2022.
The have also passed draconian anti-trans legislation that was vetoed by the governor. But they’re just getting started.
The founder of Hoosiers for Life, an anti-abortion group in Indiana, created the Liberty Defense PAC, with the goal of moving the Indiana legislature even further to the right. Besides demanding a quick ban on abortion, Holcomb’s COVID-19 regulations were among the group’s chief targets. The PAC endorsed 23 state House candidates it dubbed “liberty defenders;” many of whom ran against incumbent lawmakers.
This far-right slate had a very bad night on Tuesday. Twenty of its endorsed candidates lost; only two won. (The final district remains too close to call as of publication, though the “liberty” candidate leads narrowly.) Jacob and Nisly were the only incumbents on the “liberty” slate; Nisly faced a fellow lawmaker after their districts were combined due to redistricting.
Traditional conservatives also held the line further up the ballot in a key congressional election: Erin Houchin, a former lawmaker, won the Republican primary for Indiana’s deeply red Ninth Congressional District. Houchin ran as a staunch conservative, but the far-right Freedom Caucus rallied behind the candidacy of former congressmember Mike Sodrel.
Interesting, no? This dynamic may explain why the mainstream Republicans seemed to panic over the Alito draft. Extremism on abortion isn’t playing.
The old guard in various states is putting up a bit of a fight and in some cases winning. Of course the old guard is hardly moderate. Before the latest round of QAnon loons, they would have been considered extremists themselves.
The goalposts have definitely moved. Again.
By the way, Bolts magazine is really good. Check it out if you haven’t already.