For those who hold center-left positions on abortion rights and sensible gun-safety measures, this election was obviously a profound disappointment, conferring as it did a trifecta majority on a party that doesn’t support either.
But though it’s not a remedy, there is at least a sensible reactive course to the national outcome: For the next two years, invest heavily in state efforts on those issues.
On abortion, that approach has already brought important results. Through his appointment of three conservative US Supreme Court justices, Trump delivered on his promise to overturn Roe v. Wade rights, clearing the way for Republicans to impose or reinstate strict restrictions or total bans in states where they hold political sway.
Abortion rights obviously didn’t play the dispositive role Kamala Harris and the Democrats hoped it would in the presidential election. That happens; issues that enjoy majority support are often subsumed by matters that carry greater weight in a head-to-head contest.
But on Election Day, seven states did pass ballot measures to protect abortion rights. That tally includes four states that went for Trump: Arizona, Nevada, Missouri, and Montana. Citizens of Kansas and Ohio, both red states, previously voted to protect abortion rights, as did those in battleground Michigan.
“Wins for ballot measures in seven states show that abortion is still a mobilizing force that voters across the country get behind,” Krystal Leaphart, senior policy associate for state partnerships at the Guttmacher Institute, said via email.
The news was not all good, of course. Abortion rights efforts failed in three red states: South Dakota, Nebraska, and Florida. But the Florida loss comes with a large asterisk.
“Even in Florida, where the measure fell short of the 60 percent threshold, over 57 percent of voters supported it, signaling there is broad support for abortion rights despite a coordinated misinformation campaign against the measure,” Leaphart noted.
Post-Dobbs polling shows support for abortion rights has solidified. Meanwhile, tragic situations where women have died or suffered serious health traumas because they couldn’t obtain an urgently needed abortion should open more eyes. These are fights that can be won.
Gun safety presents a dual challenge, defensive on the national level, offensive on the state level.
Nationally, gun-rights advocates hope to pass legislation to override strict laws on the concealed carrying of guns by stipulating that states with tough laws must honor the right-to-carry arrangements travelers enjoy in their home states, even if those states have lax gun laws. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to sign a concealed carry reciprocity law, which would open a large loophole in individual state laws. That defensive battle will have to be waged in Congress and perhaps the courts.
Meanwhile, two realities could buttress efforts to strengthen state statutes.
First, in an era where gun violence has become epidemic, the data is clear, noted John Rosenthal, cofounder of Stop Handgun Violence: States with tougher gun laws have significantly lower rates of gun deaths than those with loose laws.
Further, though the Republican Party is beholden to the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby, polling shows relatively strong support for tougher gun laws among the public at large.
But those efforts will obviously have to be localized.
One of the strangest and most disappointing developments in the first Trump administration came after the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 students and staff were killed and 17 more injured.
At first it looked as though Trump had been moved to take significant action on gun safety. In a televised meeting with legislative leaders in March 2018, he actually accused Republicans of being scared — “petrified,” even — to take on the National Rifle Association but noted that he wasn’t similarly craven.
Then Chris Cox, at the time the NRA’s top lobbyist, paid a White House call on Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and declared via tweet that Trump and Pence “support the Second Amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control.” And that was pretty much that.
Indeed, speaking at an NRA-sponsored event in Pennsylvania earlier this year, Trump boasted about his inaction on firearms. “There was great pressure on me having to do with guns,” he said. “We did nothing, we didn’t yield.”
This time around, there’s no doubt where Trump is.
“Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated on my very first week back in office,” he added.
Nationally, it’s a sad state of affairs on both abortion rights and gun safety. We must face the reality created by this election: For the next two years, the best path for progress runs through the various state capitals.
Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeScotLehigh.