Fox News is struggling with brutal election night for the GOP

Abortion rights Tuesday helped fuel a series of Democratic victories in key states after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade had fallen.

The Democrats introduced abortion rights downtown their campaigns and spent tens of millions highlighting them Republican support for abortion bans in the off-year elections and achieved major victories in those elections.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who criticized the anti-abortion sentiments of his Trump-backed Republican opponent Daniel Cameron, won re-election. Democrats gained control of both chambers of the Virginia state legislature after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and GOP candidates pushed for new abortion limits. Democrat Dan McCaffery won a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, securing the Democrats’ 5-2 majority in a race that also ended concentrated strong on abortion rights.

Voters in Ohio too approved by an overwhelming majority a Democratic-backed ballot measure that enshrines a right to abortion in the state constitution.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion activist Brandon Presley fared worse in the Mississippi gubernatorial election, losing to Republican incumbent Tate Reeves.

Conservatives at Fox News have struggled to cope with the abortion-related losses.

“If we’re really honest — and I consider myself pro-life, but I understand that’s not where the country is — I would say the country is 15 weeks into the first trimester,” moderator Sean Hannity said at the discussion Tuesday night of Ohio results. “And these questions are decided by the states.”

Hannity pointed to previous abortion-related losses in other states, calling it an “indication that the women of America, suburban mothers, probably want this legally and rarely and probably sooner than is feasible.”

Kayleigh McEnany, a Fox News host and former Trump press secretary, lamented the “defeat in the pro-life movement.”

“Every ballot initiative after Dobbs has been lost to the pro-life movement,” she said. “As a party, Sean, we must, we must not just be a pro-baby party. This is a great thing. We must be a pro-mother party. We need a national strategy… to help vulnerable women because the results of next year’s elections could depend on it.”

McEnany called on the House of Representatives to pass legislation that would allow men to pay support to women for their children from the time of conception, legislation to ensure that the child tax credit applies to the unborn, and legislation that would Allow women to access the nutritional supplement program up to two years postpartum.”

“These are things that could be done today and will make a difference!” she added. “But as long as we don’t get this issue under control as a party, we will keep losing.”

Fox contributor Charlie Hurt, who also appeared in the segment, said the Supreme Court’s ruling put Republicans in an “uncomfortable” position.

“That’s what happens when you’ve been around for 50 years [after] “An unelected group of Supreme Court justices is taking this vital issue away from voters and ruling by law in Washington,” he said, despite decades of Republican efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Want a daily digest of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletterCrash course.

“Thankfully we’re getting it back to the states and to the voters – it’s a tough issue and we’re working on it,” he said. “It will be difficult and it will be unpleasant. Everyone has to try to find their own voice in it.”

Hannity then accused Democrats of “trying to scare women and make them believe that Republicans do not want to legalize abortion under any circumstances.”

Over on Newsmax, former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., lamented that the Democratic base is “more anxious to vote generally than Republicans” and bemoaned voters’ ability to vote directly on issues they concerns, such as the Ohio Initiative.

“We’ve seen this for a number of years, and in a base election they – the Democrats – spend more, and you put very sexy things like abortion and marijuana on the ballot, and a lot of young people come and vote.” It was a secret for the disaster in Ohio,” he said. “I don’t know what they were thinking, but that’s why I thank God that most states in this country don’t allow you to put everything on the ballot because pure democracies are not the way to run a country. “