Key V.P. Debate Takeaway Blows Huge Hole in Trump’s Abortion Claims

American voters had one unanimous takeaway from the vice presidential debate Tuesday night, and it veered directly into territory that the Republican ticket has spent months trying to avoid.

Google Trends data indicates that, despite the country’s divided attention on various key political issues, all 50 states were laser focused on just one topic after the 90-minute matchup between Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: abortion.

Vance, who has previously likened abortion to murder, spent some of his time outright flaunting his support for a national abortion ban for cameras, attempting to frame himself as a flexible moderate on the issue rather than a politician who in 2023 described the procedure’s near-total restriction as a “minimum national standard.” Language on Vance’s website from his 2022 Senate race also described him as “100 percent pro-life.”

“I never supported a national ban,” Vance claimed during the debate. “I did, during when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard. For example, we have a partial-birth abortion ban … in place in this country at the federal level. I don’t think anybody is trying to get rid of that, or at least, I hope not, though I know the Democrats have taken a very radical pro-abortion stance.”

Vance also made an appeal to the hearts of Americans, invoking the image of a friend who he said required an abortion to escape an abusive relationship. But he failed to mention that the legislation he supported would have forced her to remain in the situation.

That discrepancy was enough to catch the attention of the country, who merged their disparate interests into a unanimous search engine query that swept the nation.

That data flies in the face of a major Republican claim: that people don’t actually care about abortion and are more interested in other issues.

The Republican ticket has attempted to soften its anti-choice position in the weeks building up to the election in an attempt to appeal to women’s rights activists and draw more voters to Donald Trump’s campaign. But the practical effects of Trump’s last administration are still obvious, not least of all instilling a hyperconservative Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, which Trump has proudly taken credit for. In 2023, the former president also claimed that he should be celebrated for every single state abortion ban.

Project 2025, the far-right, Christian nationalist blueprint for a potential second Trump administration, is also all in on banning the procedure, going so far as to propose criminalizing the mailing of abortion medications and devices.