GOP Candidate Runs From Anti-Abortion Record in Tight Gubernatorial Race

A Republican gubernatorial candidate in New Hampshire is running away from her longtime opposition to abortion, in the latest test of Republicans’ ability to distance themselves from the unpopular policy in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion.

As a U.S. senator and in the years after she left elected office, Kelly Ayotte was consistently involved with efforts to limit reproductive autonomy. But in her race against Democrat Joyce Craig, the former mayor of Manchester, Ayotte has tried to assure voters that she wouldn’t impose additional abortion restrictions in the Granite State, though she’s stopped short of disavowing her previous positions. The state currently bans abortions after 24 weeks, with limited exceptions.

Craig and her supporters have made abortion a central issue in the race, while Ayotte has slammed Democrats for “politicizing abortion to win votes.” The two are facing off in a tight race that the Cook Political Report has described as the only “toss-up” governor’s race this year. Neither Ayotte’s campaign nor Craig’s campaign responded to a request for comment.

Ayotte is far from the only Republican candidate who’s attempted to distance herself from opposition to abortion. Vice presidential nominee and Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance was caught earlier this year wiping anti-abortion messages from his website. And in some congressional races this cycle, Republicans have attempted to rebrand as “pro-choice,” despite their records to the contrary. GOP candidates are seemingly looking to avoid a repeat of the 2022 midterm elections, when Democrats successfully tied their Republican opponents to the deeply unpopular Dobbs decision, which came down in June of that year.

“New Hampshire voters overwhelmingly support abortion access,” said Kayla Montgomery, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund, which has endorsed Craig. “So Kelly is trying to rebuild her record on this. And at the end of the day, I don’t think voters are going to be fooled because she has a long record of being anti-abortion.”

No Constituency for Abortion Opposition

A year before Dobbs, New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law a 24-week abortion ban — which includes exceptions for fatal fetal diagnoses and to save the life of the pregnant person — along with additional restrictions, including a mandatory ultrasound for anyone seeking an abortion. The measures “hugely backfired” for Republicans, said Linda Fowler, a government professor at Dartmouth University. Last year, lawmakers repealed the ultrasound mandate.

Though New Hampshire’s abortion law is far less restrictive than those of many Southern states, Democrats have noted that it’s out of step with the rest of New England. Neighboring states have all codified a guaranteed right to abortion and pro-actively expanded access to abortion care.

Anti-abortion politics have never been particularly popular in the Granite State, said Fowler. “There’s not much of a constituency for it,” she said.

Craig has vowed to codify abortion rights and to repeal the existing restrictions past 24 weeks. In a platform promise to “champion women’s health,” Ayotte, meanwhile, said she supports the state’s current law and would not change it.

She has emphasized that message in a series of campaign ads. In one ad, Ayotte, who was endorsed by the current Republican governor, argues that Democrats are lying about the state’s abortion ban and that women in New Hampshire have the right to choose. In the same ad, she says that she would “veto” any law that was more “restrictive” than the current abortion ban. However, in a later debate, she refused to answer whether she would support criminal or civil penalties for abortion providers after 24 weeks.

Ayotte, who as a senator supported a measure that state Democrats argue would have allowed employers and insurers to deny coverage for in vitro fertilization, has proactively affirmed her support for the treatment. In another advertisement, the former senator discusses finding out during one of her pregnancies that her fetus wasn’t viable and argues that because she’s experienced loss, she would never outlaw treatments like IVF.

A Clear Record

Democrats and their allies, meanwhile, have been encouraging voters to look at Ayotte’s relatively recent record on reproductive rights.

“Ayotte is purposely rewriting her record on abortion and is, at times, outright lying to Granite Staters about what she would do as Governor of New Hampshire. The reality is that she cannot be trusted to protect reproductive rights in New Hampshire,” wrote the state Democratic Party in a memo outlining Ayotte’s abortion record.

As a senator, Ayotte received a 100 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee, the largest and oldest anti-abortion organization in the United States, and an A+ rating from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a large anti-abortion lobbying group.

In 2014, Ayotte was one of four senators who led the charge to implement a national abortion ban. Ayotte also voted for the controversial Blunt Amendment, which would have weakened the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate. And she repeatedly voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Ayotte also served as one of the senators who shepherded Neil Gorsuch through his Supreme Court confirmation process, a crucial vote for overturning Roe v. Wade.

Ayotte lost her reelection bid in 2016 and continued her anti-abortion advocacy outside the Senate.

In 2017, Ayotte reportedly helped found Winning for Women, a political action committee pitched as a counter to EMILY’s List, a liberal group that backs “pro-choice” Democrats. She served on Winning for Women’s board and was listed on its website as recently as 2023, but her name was removed by February 2024, according to a review of internet archives.

Winning for Women poured over $8.3 million into backing dozens of candidates with anti-abortion records during Ayotte’s tenure, according to local reporting. And on the same day the Supreme Court released its Dobbs decision, the organization reportedly launched a joint fundraising committee for six candidates who had previously supported overturning Roe v. Wade. The group has supported a variety of hard-line anti-abortion candidates, including Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Georgia.

Ayotte hasn’t explicitly changed her position on abortion — and that may prove to be a political liability, said Fowler, the Dartmouth professor. “She hasn’t said I’ve changed my mind about being pro-choice. She hasn’t had a Liz Cheney, you know, ‘The anti-abortion movement has gone too far’ kind of moment,” Fowler said. “She’s basically tried to say she won’t change the law and put it behind her. And so it becomes a basis for the Craig campaign to say, “You can’t trust her on this issue,” and anecdotally, when you talk to women about it, that resonates with them.”