Republicans gearing up for the midterms in Southern states could provide clues as to how their party plans to talk about abortion in campaigns moving forward.
No other region in the country has had more success when it comes to pushing anti-abortion legislation: Of the 16 states with some of the most restrictive policies on abortion, many of them, including Texas and Louisiana, are Southern states, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health research organization.
In conversations with NOTUS, several Republican candidates indicated that when Roe v. Wade was overturned, they saw the issue as settled and didn’t plan for it to be a key part of their 2026 campaigns.
“I think that the issue of abortion nationally has been, for the most part, put to bed by the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas told NOTUS. “As a guy that believes in the protection of the life and rights of the unborn, that was a big first step. So I don’t think it’s as much of an issue as it was in previous elections.”
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Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida told NOTUS that abortion is the “most personal issue” in politics, but doesn’t think it will be a central issue for Florida voters.
“In our state, obviously it is an issue that comes up, but it’s not the dominating one in our politics,” Donalds said. “The law in Florida is clear, and we move forward.”
For some conservatives, this is a rare opportunity to push for more ambitious legislation to outlaw abortion and other forms of reproductive health care.
“One of the things we know is that just because Texas and these other states have taken steps to technically make abortion illegal, it has not stopped abortion in the state,” Abby Johnson, a prominent anti-abortion activist, told NOTUS. “So if you don’t have any sort of penalty toward people who are, number one, receiving these pills, but also the providers of the abortions, it’s not going to stop.”
But some lawmakers running for reelection in the South seem comfortable sticking to the message many Republicans highlighted in 2024: The Supreme Court has left it to states to legislate, and that’s where it should stay.
“As far as I’m campaigning, I’m pro-life, but the power was kicked back to the states where it belongs,” said Rep. Julia Letlow of Louisiana.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Republicans’ messaging on abortion has shifted multiple times. They’ve at times avoided the issue nationally, and they’ve also tried to rebrand themselves as a “pro-family” party.
But for all the consternation over how the party approaches reproductive health care, many of the candidates running campaigns now find themselves taking a sanguine approach.
“There probably are some wedge issues that are going to emerge, but I don’t see guns or pro-life votes or questions being among them,” John Fleming, Louisiana’s treasurer who is running for Sen. Bill Cassidy’s seat in 2026, told NOTUS.
“I just think there’s pretty close to 100% agreement among Republicans when it comes to these issues. I could be wrong about that, but it’s not being heavily discussed,” Fleming continued. “I think people automatically assume that I’m 100% pro life, and they don’t even bother to ask the question because I think I’ve established that.”
Cassidy said he wasn’t taking questions when NOTUS attempted to ask him at the Capitol about the issue. But last week he posted a campaign graphic on his Facebook page with the caption that he’d “never waver in standing for the pro-life cause.”
Other Republicans said they are taking a similar level of comfort with their messaging.
“The people of Tennessee know exactly where I stand on abortion, and I think they know me as a conservative. So it’s going to be,” Sen. Bill Hagerty told NOTUS about his stance on abortion playing a key role in his campaign. “It’s part of who I am.”
One Republican operative told NOTUS Republicans don’t expect abortion to be an issue that galvanizes voters in the 2026 cycle like it once did.
“I don’t think it’s really a top-mind issue for voters anymore because it’s pretty much settled in a lot of states. And I don’t think it’s going to mobilize Democratic voters as it once did back in like the ’22 cycle,” the operative said. “I’m not saying it’s not an important issue, because it certainly is, but I don’t think it’ll be a top campaign issue for this cycle going forward.”
Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida, who co-chairs the House’s Pro-Life Caucus, recently opened up about her own experience with state restrictions on abortion. She had a life-threatening miscarriage last year, and told The Wall Street Journal that doctors delayed giving her care because of worries over her state’s laws regarding abortion. In an interview with the paper, she argued that it was “fear mongering” by Democrats that played a role in situations like hers, and that the political environment has complicated discussing women’s health care.
“We have turned the conversation about women’s health care into two camps: pink hats and pink ribbons,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s either breast cancer or abortion.”
Cammack’s office did not respond to an interview request from NOTUS.
The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision played a major role in reshaping politics in the years that followed. Democrats capitalized on the unpopularity of the decision by making it a central part of their campaign messaging in 2022, which they credited with helping them stave off major losses in those midterms.
The fall of Roe v. Wade had political ramifications that seemed to reach even far to the South. In addition to the trigger laws that took effect in various states after the Supreme Court’s decision, Republicans received backlash after the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled that frozen embryos have the same rights as children, which eventually prompted the state legislature to step in.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out talking points telling Republicans to reject restrictions on in vitro fertilization. And Democrats managed to flip an Alabama state House seat when a Democratic candidate ran a campaign centered on abortion access.
But abortion messaging did not deliver wins for Democrats in 2024, giving some anti-abortion advocates reason to believe that they can go further now. They say that their fight to outlaw abortions isn’t over just because Southern states have abortion bans in place.
Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life of America, told NOTUS that since Dobbs, “we’re seeing a different kind of pro-life discussion.”
“A lot of the political reality of the abortion fight prior to Dobbs was, elect a senator to maybe get somebody on the Supreme Court to maybe review a case” to overturn Roe, Hamrick said. Now, she added, the anti-abortion movement wants to see “who is actually pro-life and who is verbally pro-life.”
While many of the lawmakers NOTUS spoke with felt it was an issue that had dropped off in their races, at least one, Rep. William Timmons of South Carolina, told NOTUS that abortion would be pivotal in his campaign messaging so that voters “understand that we’re actually winning on the issue.”
“The law has been changed, Roe v. Wade has been overturned, and now we’re going to be denying Medicaid dollars to Planned Parenthood,” Timmons said. “So everything’s been in the right direction. We’re going to continue to fight to protect life.”
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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Oriana González contributed reporting.
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