Republicans lose primaries after backing abortion exceptions

Republican backlash – Across North Dakota, Tennessee, Louisiana and South Carolina, Republican legislators who tried to loosen near-total abortion bans are facing the same political fate: anti-abortion groups and party allies shift support, activists flood primary elections, and ri

On a June 9 primary day, Eric Murphy is bracing for the kind of political backlash he believes is coming for one reason: his vote to make abortion access less restrictive in a state that has moved hard toward a ban from conception.

Murphy. a North Dakota state representative and a Republican. has already lived through the math of a party moving rightward on abortion. Last year, he tried to expand the window of pregnancy in which women could access abortion in North Dakota. The state legislature had banned abortion for almost everyone from the moment of conception. Murphy’s push was tied up in court long enough that the ban hadn’t yet gone into effect. but he wanted to lock in a less restrictive law anyway—one that would allow abortion up to 15 weeks and even later when a doctor deemed it a medical necessity.

In a hearing, Murphy read aloud from two ProPublica stories about women in Texas who died without lifesaving care. “Physicians felt compelled to follow the law. ” he said. “and both women died so that an inane law could be followed.” He argued that lawmakers were forcing doctors to obey a statute even when patients needed them most.

A conservative colleague warned him not to file the bill, Murphy recalled. “I can no longer protect you from who’s going to come after you.”

He wasn’t speaking into a void. At least four Republican state lawmakers who challenged severe abortion restrictions lost support from anti-abortion groups and key party allies and went on to lose primary elections. ProPublica found. The pattern across multiple states was strikingly similar: challengers either embraced stricter abortion policies or avoided the issue. anti-abortion organizations campaigned against incumbents. party endorsements shifted to opponents. and activists worked to turn out voters in low-participation primaries.

Murphy ultimately did not succeed in changing North Dakota’s ban. His bill failed 87-6. The state Supreme Court later reinstated the original ban, which forbids abortion from conception, with exceptions for rape and incest up to six weeks and to save the life of the mother.

Now his political future is tied to whether the Republican voters in District 43—one of the few “purple” districts in an otherwise deeply red state—will reward incrementalism or punish it.

Murphy has also had to confront a party that, this time, would not carry him the way it once did. When he ran for election previously, his county’s Republican Party endorsed him. Not this time. Instead. the party endorsed his two challengers. including Jill Chandler. the executive director of a “crisis pregnancy center” who believes abortion should be banned from conception.

Chandler told ProPublica she was present in the committee room when Murphy made the case for his bill. “To know that he was an endorsed Republican candidate from my district and one that I had voted for because of that endorsement was eye-opening. ” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘This can never happen again.’”.

Murphy’s own district shows how small margins can translate into career risk. He believes a “silent majority” supports his proposal, but he also knows primaries historically draw low turnout. “It could come down to a handful of votes,” he said.

He framed the choice in stark terms: “I might lose an election over this,” Murphy said, “but would I rather win an election by not doing the right thing?”

The political lesson seems to have landed elsewhere too. In Tennessee, Richard Briggs, a state senator, is also fighting to keep his seat in a contested primary on Aug. 6.

Briggs voted in 2019 for the state’s so-called trigger law—a ban that would snap into place if the federal right to abortion was ever overturned. In 2022. when that happened and the law activated. Briggs said he changed his view after realizing it didn’t provide adequate protections for patients dealing with medical complications. “As a medical doctor, I drew the line,” he said in an interview. He introduced bills for a clearer medical exception and protection for doctors who intervened when a fatal fetal anomaly risked the mother’s health.

The latter bill failed, and now Briggs faces a challenger. On his campaign website, Kent Morrell says Briggs has consistently worked to weaken Tennessee’s pro-life laws. The article notes that Tennessee Right to Life revoked its endorsement of Briggs.

Briggs, for his part, expressed confidence he could win. He said voters agree with the decisions he’s made. He also pointed to Sen. Becky Duncan Massey, who survived a primary challenge over her support for abortion-ban exceptions.

In North Dakota, the internal party drift doesn’t stand alone. The piece describes how Murphy has taken other positions that angered some Republicans in legislatures that have moved sharply right, including voting against book bans and private school vouchers.

Briggs’s record is different, but the principle is the same in how it was described: in addition to abortion, his past work has included urging the public to get COVID-19 shots, and saying that medical expertise should trump politics when public health is at stake.

The fallout for lawmakers who try to carve out exceptions doesn’t always look like an immediate vote count—it looks like a switch in political power. Anti-abortion organizations and party leaders don’t just disagree with them. They mobilize against them.

Mary DuBuisson, a former Louisiana state representative from a suburb outside New Orleans, describes the experience from the other side of the ballot.

Like Briggs. she had backed a near-total abortion ban in 2019. voting for it as a Republican and calling herself “passionately ‘pro-life.’” Three years later. just before Louisiana’s trigger law was implemented. she pushed to add exceptions for victims of rape and incest. When colleagues refused, DuBuisson became the only Republican to vote against the ban.

A year later, she sponsored a bill that would have allowed women whose pregnancies were not viable to end them. “To force a woman to carry to term with zero chance of survival is heartless and cruel,” she said at the time.

She expected resistance to be manageable. and she said other Republican women in the House told her she was doing the right thing. But when it came time to vote. another female Republican state lawmaker made a motion that succeeded in killing the bill in committee. DuBuisson said she couldn’t understand the opposition. “I mean, I just couldn’t understand,” she said. “What if this was you, your daughter or granddaughter?”.

In the runoff that followed, her opponent used her record as a weapon. DuBuisson’s primary opponent was Brian Glorioso, an attorney she had defeated easily in 2018. Glorioso. according to the account. called her proposed legislation a leftist attempt to circumvent the state’s abortion ban and said any “pro-abortion” doctor would falsely deem a pregnancy nonviable in records to perform the procedure.

DuBuisson beat him in the Oct. 14, 2023 primary by 384 votes—still not enough to avoid a runoff. Then the support came fast and explicit. On Oct. 16. Louisiana Right to Life told its followers the runoff was key. saying Glorioso was expected to have a 100% “pro-life” voting record while DuBuisson’s was 77%.

On Oct. 27, the state’s new governor-elect, Republican Jeff Landry, endorsed Glorioso. The piece says Landry endorsed him citing issues other than abortion and did not tell ProPublica whether DuBuisson’s abortion record played a role. But it also reports Landry defended the state’s ban as attorney general and made clear during his campaign that he was “an unwavering defender of life. especially in the face of adversity. ” citing his 100% rating from a national anti-abortion group.

“I think it partially cost me my election,” DuBuisson said.

The sequence described in the reporting—vote against strictness, lose party support, then face organized anti-abortion pressure—played out again in South Carolina the following year.

There. three state senators—Sandy Senn. Penry Gustafson. and Katrina Shealy—each described themselves as “pro-life” and nonetheless worked across party lines to defeat an abortion bill that would essentially ban the procedure from conception and eliminate rape and incest exceptions. At the time, the state allowed abortion up to 20 weeks.

Senn and Gustafson spoke out against limiting access for victims of rape and incest. Shealy pushed for making abortion accessible up to 12 weeks and later for exceptions involving rape, incest and fatal fetal anomalies. Ultimately, a six-week window with rape, incest and fatal fetal exceptions became law.

During the Statehouse showdown, the three were nicknamed the “Sister Senators.” All lost their county GOP’s endorsement to their male opponents.

But the report places the deeper damage not just in endorsements—it points to anti-abortion groups and the intensity of the mobilization. Students for Life Action announced it generated “37. 000 pieces of mail. almost 130. 000 personal text messages. more than 51. 000 phone calls and thousands of doors knocked” to unseat the trio.

Dr. Matthew Clark, the executive director of Personhood South Carolina, said his group believes the replacements improved their odds. “All three of them got voted out — every single one of them lost because of that decision,” Clark said.

Clark, described as an allergist and Presbyterian pastor, said his group’s desired legislation has a better chance now that the Sister Senators have been replaced.

Other details underscore how quickly legislative goals can harden once different lawmakers take over. Matt Leber. who beat Senn. had previously co-sponsored a bill as a state House member that would make abortion a crime equivalent to homicide. The piece says it failed to advance, and Leber withdrew his name as a co-sponsor in 2023 amid controversy.

This legislative session. Leber and Carlisle Kennedy. who beat Shealy. supported a bill that carries misdemeanor criminal penalties for women seeking abortions. with jail time up to two years. Senate Bill 1095 passed with supermajority support out of a committee Leber sits on. The bill died before the session. but the reporting says watchers noticed it got further than any other similarly repressive legislation.

What makes the political story in the reporting especially tense is that public polling doesn’t line up cleanly with the election outcomes. Surveys in South Carolina and Louisiana have found that many Republican voters support at least some exceptions to abortion bans. including in cases of rape or threats to a woman’s health.

But the primaries described here don’t always reward majority sentiment. DuBuisson’s runoff drew about one-third of registered voters. The piece says participation in South Carolina primaries was lower still. Some races were decided by tiny margins; Senn lost hers by 33 votes.

In North Dakota, that disconnect is part of the reason Murphy believes a small bloc could decide everything. His district includes part of Grand Forks, a growing college town home to the University of North Dakota. His fellow representative, Democrat Zac Ista, told ProPublica he hadn’t been able to make a dent in the legislature. Ista announced he wouldn’t seek reelection, opening up an opportunity for a Republican takeover.

The report says Ista attributed the lack of support rallying around Murphy to his position on abortion. as well as culture-war legislation he refused to support. “I think it’s illustrative of that schism. where at this district level. Republicans are really trying to sort of press the most extreme conservative opinions. ” Ista said.

Even inside the local party machinery, the reporting shows how endorsement decisions can hinge on who shows up and how quickly narratives harden.

Richard Glynn, the GOP county chair in Murphy’s district, previously supported Murphy’s abortion bill. In written testimony. Glynn described his experience hearing about young women performing illegal abortions when he was a freshman at the University of South Dakota in 1966. He wrote that four young women who were in sororities died from using metal hangers to terminate their pregnancies. He said these deaths were preventable if they’d had competent care and said North Dakota was going down the same path with limited access to obstetric care that negatively affects the health of the woman.

When reached by phone, Glynn said delegates in the county voted and Murphy had the least amount of votes, which is why he did not receive the county’s endorsement. The piece says Glynn declined to answer more questions before hanging up.

One of Murphy’s opponents, Mike Holmes, has received excitement and an endorsement from Gov. Kelly Armstrong for his expertise in energy technology and industrial development. Armstrong said Holmes understands “what it takes to keep North Dakota’s economy strong.” The piece says Holmes has been silent on abortion and did not respond to requests for an interview.

Chandler, meanwhile, is favored among anti-abortion groups. Bridget Turbide. executive director of North Dakota Right to Life. called Murphy’s proposal “the most extreme pro-choice bill we’ve ever seen.” Citizens Alliance of North Dakota. a conservative group that opposes abortion among other causes. paid for a mailer calling Chandler a “champion of family values.” The same group marked Murphy in “bad standing” in an online roster of legislators. questioning his alignment with North Dakota values.

North Dakota is also described as moving even further in its own political language. The piece says the North Dakota GOP has moved further to the right on abortion in recent years even as polling suggested restrictions were losing support from Republican voters. At its 2026 convention, the party passed a resolution rejecting any policies that “normalize” abortion.

Murphy has faced the consequences not only in endorsements and opposition ads but in the way other Republicans describe what his candidacy means for the state.

His third colleague representing District 43, Republican State Sen. Jeff Barta, campaigned alongside him in 2022 as part of a unified Republican ticket when the primary election was uncontested. In discussing the upcoming race and Murphy’s record, Barta pointed to Murphy’s proposal. Barta said that in House Bill 1488. Murphy “created a little divide.” He said Murphy broke with the party on other issues. which he argued opened the door for a third candidate to run. Barta said that had that not happened. Murphy would have reached the general election without defending his spot on the ballot.

The reporting ends by situating Murphy and other lawmakers in a broader shift. It says that before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, lawmakers taking nuanced stands on abortion bans may not have risked the same kind of career death sentence. Abortion historian and law professor Mary Ziegler is quoted saying Murphy’s incremental approach was closer to a “bygone era. ” when activists were more pragmatic and not punished for it.

For Murphy. the fight is now less about drafting a bill and more about whether a party that has hardened into a smaller. more disciplined political coalition will tolerate legislators who try to carve out exceptions. The stakes are personal—an election, a seat, a career. And they are also public. because the policy he tried to change was designed around the difference between what the law permits and what medicine can safely do.

abortion bans Republican primaries Eric Murphy North Dakota Richard Briggs Kent Morrell Louisiana trigger law Mary DuBuisson Jeff Landry South Carolina Sister Senators Sandy Senn Penry Gustafson Katrina Shealy