Hardline positions on abortion and LGBTQ rights have some moderate Republicans worried the GOP will pay the price at the polls.
“Uncompromising positions and loaded rhetoric on key social issues are escalating concerns within GOP circles that the party is moving too far out of sync with popular opinion, projecting new hostility to gay people and potentially alienating women voters in high-stakes races,” The Washington Post reported Saturday.
“The Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade and ending a nationwide right to abortion last month has spawned strict new bans and stirred fears that gay rights and access to contraception could be next — shifting the focus from other culture-war battles where Republicans felt they had a winning message,” the paper added.
The newspaper interviewed Christine Matthews, a GOP strategist in Virginia.
“I feel we’re on this sort of seesaw where one party sort of gets the upper hand on social-cultural issues, then they overplay that hand,” she said. “Republicans have taken things too far.”
She warned of the Democratic Party argument that Republicans “want to take our country back to the 1950s.”
California GOP strategist John Thomas admitted abortion is “not a winning issue for us.”
One prominent GOP strategist, granted anonymity by the newspaper, did not think comments from the most extreme Republicans would harm them in the midterms.
“Every village has an idiot, and we have several villages,” the strategist said. “I don’t think there’s probably anything said before Oct. 15 that’s going to stick around till Election Day. And it’s got to be said by a high-enough profile [figure].”
Read the full report.