abortion ban

A couple pod episodes ago I told Kate Riga that I didn’t quite understand what was going on in the Virginia legislative races. It was being treated as a very close run thing in which Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin stood a very real chance of getting the full control of the state legislature he needed to pass a 15 week abortion ban. Was that really plausible since Virginia is basically a blue state, with maybe a few shades of purple, and abortion bans have been a loser pretty much everywhere? As she rightly explained, that was the consensus. But it was more vibes than data. There wasn’t much polling. (There seldom is for state legislative races since news organization don’t have the incentive or the money to poll multiple key races.) It was mainly based on the continuing perception of Youngkin as an electoral golden boy who managed to win the governorship in what is now a reliably blue state.

And yet, he put it all on the line and got … well, smoked. He didn’t capture the Senate and Democrats have also taken back the House of Delegates. In electoral terms, abortion remains a way that Republicans abort themselves. And a lot of them keep doing it. Moths to a flame, really. And here we are.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss Mike Johnson’s early days on the job and major upcoming elections in Ohio and Virginia.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.