I have a general theory that there are a portion of voters who vote Republican for certain reasons - namely the economy. I think other things that play a role are secure borders, foreign policy, and the Second Amendment.
Those people tolerated the GOP’s stance on abortion because it simply didn’t matter to them or affect them. Yeah, a state might have passed some restrictions here or there, but nothing much really happened.
Then Roe v Wade was overturned. The media has exploited the various hard cases which account for less than 5% of abortions. Although, I really don’t know that it’s just the hard cases. I think there is a chunk of the Republican party that supports abortion. They want it legal on demand.
Perhaps it’s a libertarian perspective or perhaps it’s the fact that they want that option for themselves/their family. Those people are now faced with a dilemma with Roe being overturned and restrictions being put into place in some states. Do I think many of them will state vote Republican? I do, but depending on how important the issue, a minority may not. This was a perfect opportunity for those Republicans who will stay Republican because they could still vote in the Republican primary and then vote to keep abortion. It was a win win.
This is very sad to see.
The big problem, in my view, is the large block of independent voters, a group as large or larger than Republicans or Democrats. If Democratic lies convince them that Republicans want to turn women into slaves for pumping out babies or something, this group which would normally vote against the party in power in the midterms could turn against us in November, based on what just happened in Kansas, where 20% of the electorate turned out only to vote on the referendum and not either party’s primaries.