By Suzanne Bowdey

As far as theatrics go, Donald Trump’s sixth State of the Union had everything a showman could want — the golden boys of Team USA, the heart-wrenching moments of grieving parents and miraculous recoveries, the drama of Democratic protests, and the president’s answering antagonism. But for all that’s been written about the record-setting night, the biggest takeaway may not have been what was said, but what wasn’t. In a speech of 10,599 words, not one was about life.

For conservatives, the lack of even a single mention of the unborn in an almost a two-hour running commentary of the last year was disappointing for a host of reasons. This is a man who, in the recitation of his greatest second-term achievements, omitted what a lot of Americans would consider some of his finest. After four years of Joe Biden’s social extremism, taxpayers are no longer living under a government that forces them to finance the culture of death — in most programs at home and overseas. His administration has done everything from protecting conscience rights, defunding Planned Parenthood, rolling back policies that force insurance companies to cover abortions, stopping the grotesque practice of fetal tissue at NIH, and even turning off the spigots for free abortions for illegal immigrants.

But Tuesday’s vacuum on life, one of Trump’s core first-term issues, says a lot about the president’s recent reluctance to engage in key aspects of this debate — when, unfortunately, it’s raging the fiercest. Since his last turn in office, chemical abortions have exploded across the country, throwing open the door to a nationwide war over mifepristone’s safety, its availability in states that outlaw it, the illegality of mailing it, and the government’s role in ensuring that women are under a doctor’s supervision when 11% encounter the terrifying complications research shows they will.

Behind the White House’s closed doors, insiders say, there’s a concern that abortion is somehow a losing issue for the GOP, a fear that’s gripped Trump since the first post-Dobbs elections. In the 2024 presidential race, Trump stunned people by suggesting that Republicans shouldn’t be taking a hard line on abortion, because it makes it “very difficult to win elections.” “This issue cost us dearly in the midterms — and unnecessarily,” he claimed.

But his perception and reality are two different things, polling and recent history suggest. In that same 2022 election cycle, every Republican governor who ran for reelection after signing significant pro-life legislation won — and by big margins. The problem isn’t that life is a liability. The problem is that too many silent Republicans are.

“We’ve seen what happens when we let Democrats define who we are and what we stand for,” then-RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel argued at the height of the last presidential race. In 2022, “a lot of Republican candidates took their D.C. consultants’ bad advice to ignore the subject,” she lamented. “Then what happened? Democrats spent $360 million running ads filled with lies about abortion, and most Republicans had no response.”

So if Trump is making a political calculus with his silence, Cygnal’s Senior Partner and Pollster John Rogers says, then he’s making the wrong one. According to his company’s latest research, the GOP could very well lose the midterm elections by misjudging this issue alone.

“Democratic Party enthusiasm is very high,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch.” “We’ve seen Democrats overperform in a special election recently … and we’re coming into a midterm election year in which Republicans hold, obviously, the presidency and both chambers of Congress.” Historically, he warns, “that means that that’s going to be a tough midterm election for the party that’s in power.” So it’s “imperative,” Rogers underscores, “that Republicans do everything to make sure that there is a strong high turnout among the Republican base voters.”

In their polling this month, Cygnal found that life is a “very important topic” to GOP primary voters. And a third of them say they wouldn’t be nearly as enthusiastic about voting in the elections if they felt like their leaders in D.C. were “abandoning or weakening pro-life principles.”

Principles, interestingly enough, that the president continues to back away from. “We found that 84% of Republican primary voters across the country oppose federal tax dollars being used for abortion,” Rogers explained. Seventy-nine percent of general GOP voters agreed, which should set off alarm bells in a White House that just suggested “flexibility” on the issue.

These same voters are also frustrated with the administration’s policy on the abortion drug, Rogers stresses, creating real risks for the November midterms. Large majorities of Republicans don’t understand Trump’s refusal to overturn Biden’s dangerous policy on mifepristone, which erased all of the protections for women. A whopping 80% want to see the FDA restore the safety requirement of in-person doctor’s visits, and another 74% insist the president should start enforcing the laws against mailing the drug across state lines.

“This is not a marginal constituency,” Rogers was quick to clarify, “it is the GOP primary core.” And “any decrease in enthusiasm or any decrease in the turnout of GOP voters, even if it’s just 5%,” he warned, “could have really a catastrophic effect in some of those key battleground districts.”

That’s not what House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wants to hear right now. The GOP majority in both chambers is already whisper-thin, and the last thing his party can afford is for anyone to stay home in November. Remember, Rogers pointed out, “President Trump is not on the ballot again,” meaning that the people who turned out just for him will be less motivated to vote. “[Republicans are] now the party of the non-college voter, which means that midterm elections are harder and harder, because the non-college voter may or may not turn out if he’s not on the ticket. And because of that, it makes it even more imperative to ensure that there’s no decrease in enthusiasm among your base pro-life voters.”

That’s why Tuesday’s speech was such a missed opportunity. On a night when the president had the entire country’s attention, he could have defined the debate on his terms. He could have approached abortion the same way he did with immigration and transgenderism — by publicly shaming the Democrats for their radicalism. In past years, when we’ve seen Trump go on offense on this issue, he wins. In 2016, when he described the barbaric practice of late-term abortion in detail with Hillary Clinton — “You can take a baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day, and that’s not acceptable” — it was a powerful moment that turned the campaign on its head.

When Republicans, including Trump, take the time to spell out the extremism of Democrats — unlimited abortion-on-demand for any reason at taxpayer expense — the issue becomes a weapon. But voters won’t follow where Republicans don’t lead. They need men and women of courage to stand up and defend the rock-solid ground the party has stood on. 

Chuck Donovan, a longtime pro-life champion, longs for the days of moral clarity from his old boss. “Just to reminisce,” he posted Tuesday night, “February 6, 1985, State of the Union, Ronald Reagan: ‘The question of abortion grips our nation. Abortion is either the taking of a human life or it isn’t. And if it is — and medical technology is increasingly showing it is — it must be stopped. It is a terrible irony that while some turn to abortion, so many others who cannot become parents cry out for children to adopt. We have room for these children. We can fill the cradles of those who want a child to love. And tonight, I ask you in the Congress to move this year on legislation to protect the unborn.’”

Abortion isn’t something we fight because it’s politically advantageous — although it could be. It’s something we fight as a matter of principle, justice, and human dignity. But if the White House insists on basing its decision-making on what will benefit them in the midterm elections, then it’s time to rethink Trump’s strategy. Because the only time life is a losing issue is when Republicans refuse to address it.

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand. This piece was originally published here.