OPINION: Trump can't win on abortion - whatever he says

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

44% : It will force Republicans to play defence in the state where Trump resides, a state they have been able to count on as in the bag for over a decade - and the Republicans currently don't have much campaign cash to spare.
43% : White evangelicals will, as always, turn out in large numbers to vote for him, but if even a few abstain in crucial swing states, it could cost Trump the election.
35% : I put 'his' in quotation marks, because Trump has been all over the map on abortion and only came out in favour of severe restrictions since becoming a, and then the, key figure in Republican politics.
34% : Trump is aware of this, and he reportedly worries in private conversations that abortion is a losing issue for the party.
31% : In 1999, for example, Trump was "very pro-choice", yet in 2016, he agreed that women who have abortions should be punished.
27% : But I also find it unlikely many moderates will trust that Trump, under pressure from a Republican congress dominated by right-wing Christians, would refuse to sign a national abortion ban.
25% : Meanwhile, Trump is risking at least the enthusiasm of his white evangelical base by backing away from support for a national abortion ban.
24% : In his statement, claiming that Democrats are the "radical" party on abortion, Trump also pushes the false narrative that Democrats "support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month... and even execution after birth".
22% : If you parse that sentence, it's a sort of roundabout admission that Trump supports draconian abortion bans, but in fairness we probably shouldn't ever parse the words of the bumbling Donald too closely.
16% : If Biden were to make that move, however, the likely impact on voters outraged by American complicity in Israel's atrocities in Gaza would make it that much more difficult for Trump to win with the abortion albatross around his neck.
10% : After releasing his statement, Trump was harshly criticised by his former vice president Mike Pence, and even "respectfully disagreed with" by the usually sycophantic senator Lindsay Graham.

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