Former President Donald Trump is in a tricky, no-win position on what may be the deciding issue of the 2024 election. And he may have a hard time wriggling his way out of a jam given a recent ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court.
Earlier this week, the former president issued a statement on abortion rights that the Associated Press reported frustrated his base and energized Democrats. Trump stated that while he was proud that the three justices he appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed all Americans the Constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy, he ultimately felt the abortion issue should be up to the states.
"The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land," Trump said. "Now, it’s up to the states to do the right thing."
READ MORE: (Opinion) Trump can't outrun the consequences of Roe's fall
But following that statement, Arizona's highest court upheld a Civil War-era law that effectively bans abortion throughout the Grand Canyon State. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) clarified that she would not be prosecuting abortion providers despite the ruling.
"Today's decision to reimpose a law from a time when Arizona wasn't a state, the Civil War was raging, and women couldn't even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state," Mayes stated.
Seemingly out of political concern given Arizona potentially deciding control of the House, Senate, and the presidency in 2024, Trump backtracked on his previous position that whatever states do on abortion should be final. Politico reported that when the former president was asked during an appearance in Atlanta, Georgia if Arizona's highest court "went too far" in effectively banning all abortions, he flatly responded by saying, "yeah, they did."
"I think it’ll be straightened out and, as you know, it’s all about state’s rights and it will be straightened out," Trump said. "And I’m sure the governor and everybody else have got to bring it back into reason and that it will be taken care of I think."
READ MORE: 'Massive implications for November': AZ Supreme Court upholds 19th century anti-abortion law
On Wednesday, Rolling Stone reporter Nikki McCann Ramirez wrote that Trump has effectively backed himself into a corner after stating that abortion is a states' rights issue, but disapproving of a state deciding the issue in a politically disadvantageous way.
"On abortion, Republicans are the proverbial dog that caught the mailman. After experiencing the natural consequences — in this case voter outrage — of enforcing a wildly unpopular Supreme Court decision, the GOP is now scrambling to wash its hands of the reproductive rights disaster they’ve created throughout the country," she wrote.
Abortion is proving to be a political loser even in the reddest states. Since SCOTUS overturned Roe in 2022, abortion rights have prevailed in every state where it was on the ballot. Ballot measures attempting to inhibit abortion rights all failed in the 2022 midterm elections, including GOP strongholds like Kansas, Kentucky and Montana.
In 2023, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) was reelected with a comfortable margin despite a challenge from Trump-endorsed Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who ran on an anti-abortion platform. A 2023 ballot measure in Ohio to permanently enshrine abortion rights also passed, even though Trump comfortably won Ohio in both 2016 and 2020.
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