If Republicans are flailing on abortion messaging heading into 2024 (they are), the Biden White House is doing the exact opposite.

The midterm red wave that wasn’t was one thing. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race was another. 2024 Republicans’ ongoing, awkward, obvious flailing on abortion has confirmed the severity of the dilemma for the party. And the primary elections in Virginia this week bring us the latest datapoint on how potent and energizing the unpopularity of the Dobbs ruling and the passage of increasingly restrictives bans on abortion has been and will be for 2024 voters.

Even being a Trump appointee won’t shield you from the wrath of a House Republican majority foaming at the mouth to prove just how weaponized!!! the justice system is (but only when it serves their talking-point purposes).

While former President Donald Trump makes plans to excise the so-called “deep state” that supposedly formed in the bowels of the DOJ before he took the White House in 2016, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is vowing to act against it with a blunter instrument.

In the two years since members of the Proud Boys participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, members of the extremist, anti-government group have switched their focus a bit away from Donald Trump and toward making a fuss at the local level.

My colleague Kate Riga and I have been tracking the various ways in which Republicans are freaking out about how their party’s longstanding and extreme positioning on abortion will impact them in coming elections. Kate wrote an excellent piece earlier this week on Republican 2024 candidates’ flailing as they repeatedly and publicly struggle to pick any specific footing on the issue, aware that restrictive policy platforms and abortion bans in general have proven themselves to be wildly unpopular among voters and will likely hurt them in the upcoming presidential general election.

I won’t unpack all the evidence that supports the notion that Republicans are losing the battle of public opinion on abortion here, but to catch up, I’d recommend reading this, this and this.

But, this week, the omnipresent dilemma and intra-party rift appeared in a new venue.

Mike Pence has been tip-toeing around actually criticizing Donald Trump ever since his former boss convinced a hoard of his supporters to bust into the United States Capitol and try to overturn the 2020 election, and to call for Pence to be murdered while they were at it.

His 2024 campaign announcement wasn’t all that different.

After Donald Trump sounded the alarm on Truth Social in March that he was about to get indicted in Manhattan and alleged that DA Alvin Bragg was coordinating with the DOJ, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his other House Republican foot soldiers entered Trump’s armageddon screed into the official record. In a letter sent days before Trump was even indicted, Jordan breathed life into Trump’s Truth Social conspiracy theory by requesting that Bragg turn over whatever supposed communications his office might have had with the DOJ about the investigation.