Pro-Abortion Group Will Spend $37 Million Trying to Take Over Congress

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Sep 17, 2018   |   5:12PM   |   Washington, DC

Abortion advocacy groups are dumping huge amounts of cash into the midterm elections in an attempt to help pro-abortion Democrats regain control of Congress.

Emily’s List, a PAC that supports female, pro-abortion Democrats, announced plans to spend about $37 million between the Democratic primaries and the midterm elections, Roll Call reports.

On Monday, its president, Stephanie Schriock, said they plan to spend the money on TV and digital ads, as well as direct mail campaigns in more than 30 U.S. House races. The group also endorsed 64 House candidates and 12 Senate candidates.

Democrats would need to win 23 seats to regain the majority in the House, and the pro-abortion group acknowledged it faces an uphill battle.

“We were still rolling a boulder up a hill in a lot of places,” said Lucinda Guinn, the group’s vice president of campaigns.

Here’s more from the report:

Guinn pointed to primary wins by Gina Ortiz Jones in Texas’ 23rd District and Sharice Davids in Kansas’ 3rd District as two success stories for Women Vote!, the group’s independent expenditure arm. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the Kansas race a Toss-up and the Texas contest Tilts Republican. …

Some of the group’s candidates are running in heavily Republican districts, but Schriock dismissed a question about whether its involvement in races could lead to a pushback from socially conservative voters who balk at the group’s pro-abortion rights stance.

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She said “99.9 percent” of Democratic female candidates support abortion rights, and the vast majority of them seek the group’s endorsement.

“My philosophy has been: You’re going to get hit anyway,” Schriock said. “You may not be running on that, you may not be focusing on that, but Republicans are going to highlight it. So you might as well have the support of the organization to get you all the other things: good staffing, good structures and extra money.”

The group also has been training pro-abortion women who want to run for elected office. Schriock said they trained 5,000 so far.

Emily’s List also works with other pro-abortion PACs, including Planned Parenthood, which plans to spend $20 million on pro-abortion candidates. Target states include Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, Florida, Minnesota, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Republicans have a fairly strong majority in the U.S. House, but narrowly hold the U.S. Senate. Senate Republicans have too few votes to overcome filibusters on key pro-life bills such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and measures to defund Planned Parenthood. Just a few more pro-life wins in the Senate could see important pro-life legislation passed. A few losses could bring pro-abortion Democrats back into power.

A 2016 post-election poll by the Polling Company/Women Trend found that 49 percent of voters said the abortion issue affected their vote. Of those, 31 percent “voted for the candidates who oppose abortion (pro-life),” while only 18 percent “voted for the candidates who favor abortion (pro-choice).” This was a 13-percent advantage for the pro-life candidate.