Kellyanne Conway did her best to put a conservative-friendly spin on Kansas’ landslide in favor of abortion rights yesterday, but she tacitly acknowledged that Republicans have probably overplayed their hands with their zealous trigger bans.
The conservative plan to sneak the right to ban abortion into the Kansas state constitution failed by a whopping 17+ percentage points in the red state, as per the latest tally. The New York Times explained that anti-abortionists placed the constitutional amendment on the primary ballot thinking that turnout would be small and disproportionately Republican. But the turnout was almost as high as the last midterm election. “From the bluest counties to the reddest ones, abortion rights performed better than Mr. Biden, and opposition to abortion performed worse than Mr. Trump,” the Times noted.
Appearing on America’s Newsroom today, Conway tried to put the best anti-abortion face on the red state’s resounding rejection of abortion bans.
“This is exactly what the Dobbs decision designed the next steps to be,” Conway said of the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade, “which is kick it back to the states, let the people decide. In Kansas, they spoke very loudly last night.”
She then suggested that if only anti-abortionists waited a little longer, people would let down their guards. “Secondly, it may be too soon. Emotions are raw, confusion is deep,” Conway said. It was not clear who was supposedly confused nor about what.
But Conway tacitly acknowledged that anti-abortionists had gone too far. Planned Parenthood received a “40-fold increase in donations right after the Dobbs decision,” she said. “So people are concerned that we’ve gone from all abortion, any time, anywhere, essentially under Roe, to nothing, in some of these states. So it may be a little too soon for that.”
Conway also argued that Kansas’ Democratic, pro-choice governor, Laura Kelly who’s up for re-election this year played a part in the results. “She won last time, Laura Kelly, with less than 50% of the vote, but she is the governor there,” Conway said.
You know that if Conway could have thought of any way to make the vote look good for the GOP she would have. You can watch her inability to do so below, from the August 3, 2022 America’s Newsroom.
PS: That worried look on Bill’s face may have been pasted on by the same make-up artist.