Congressional Hopeful Yvette Herrell Tames or Moderates Her Formerly Aggressive Anti-Abortion Stance

The race for the United States New Mexico Congressional District seat 2 known locally as NMCD2 is going to be a heated race that has significant dollars being poured into. New Mexico voters have seen this seat as one that has flipped back and forth from Democrat to Republican and back to Democrat again. Democrats view it as a must win seat. 

Republicans look at the seat, as a must win seat needed as a pickup in order to gain a real majority in the US House of Representatives. The seat has been embroiled in redistricting lawsuits and the election was lost by Yvette Herrell in the last election to a Las Cruces Latino and Democrat Gabe Vasquez in a very close race.

To many voters the deciding factor in 2022 was the abortion issue and the fight on the national level over abortion. 

In 2024, with the extremist driving the Abortion debate in states like Alabama, Florida and closer to home in Texas and most recently Arizona, it appears that issue continues to drive the debate. As the laws in states such as Arizona, which recently relied upon an anti-abortion law from the years of the American Civil War (1864) to ban abortions some Republicans see risk to their campaigns.

Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump has called for the powers in charge to tone down the rhetoric, and calm the horses, as he believes the anti-abortion advocates are pushing too hard, for a complete, and all out ban.

Yvette Herrell, candidate for NMCD2,  who was previously endorsed by Donald Trump, seems to be taking notes from the former presidents playbook. She is now rolling back on her past extremist rhetoric related to abortion and that rollback is getting national attention.

In a March 11th, 2024 national story by the Huffington Post the headline read, "New Mexico Republican Leaves Anti-Abortion Past Off Campaign Website," and the story states, that before elections in 2020 and 2022, Herrell’s campaign website prominently featured her anti-abortion stance on a “shared values” page.

“With a consistent Pro-Life record in the New Mexico House of Representatives, Yvette will be a tireless advocate for the unborn in Congress,” the website said, according to cached versions accessed via the Internet Archive. “100% Pro-Life, Yvette believes life starts at conception and will never waiver in her beliefs.”

Now Herrell’s website does NOT even mention abortion at all. The “shared values” page talks about parental rights in the classroom and stopping “government overreach into our lives.”

April 15th, 2024 the Huffington Post ran another story in followup to the rollback and whitewashing on abortion that is happening with the Herrell Campaign. 

In a story titled, GOP Congressional Hopeful Wished Her State Had ‘Eliminated All Abortion’ In 2020 -New Mexico Republican candidate Yvette Herrell is currently trying to downplay her past hard-line anti-abortion stances, states that Herrell, like so many others in her party, is now scrambling to bury a longstanding anti-abortion record. In the nearly two years since Roe v. Wade fell, abortion rights supporters have been channeling their outrage at the ballot box, handing Democrats wins again and again in elections at all levels and prompting Republicans to downplay long-held positions.

Herrell has cut all references to abortion from her website and campaign materials. Her campaign has emphasized that she believes abortion rights decisions should be left to the states, a stance also recently adopted by former President Donald Trump.

However that rollback does not hide the past and her past record nor her statements related to abortion.

The Huffington Post story released a video from Ms. Herrell's past where she explained that 'all abortions should be eliminated in her home state of New Mexico

When New Mexico’s 2nd District had a more conservative electorate prior to it being reapportioned after the census, Herrell evidently thought her anti-abortion views were a selling point. “The unborn continue to be a target of the radical left,” she posted on Twitter in May 2020.

Her competitor the incumbent Gabe Vasquez’s congressional campaign released an ad hitting Yvette Herrell in 2022 for her support for banning abortion without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the woman, criminalizing abortion, and putting rape victims in jail. The ad  which was produces in 2022 is in both English and Spanish to make the stakes of this election clear to all 2nd Congressional District voters.

In a post Ms. Herrell placed on Facebook September 21st, 2021 while in congress she said, "We cannot allow ourselves to hide behind clinical language and euphemisms to avoid the truth that abortion takes the life of a child."

While Ms. Herrell can delete all references to abortion from her website and appear to whitewash or tame her past comments. Her comments from the past are in the public domain and visible. For the 2024 campaign her rhetoric varies depending upon the crowd she is in front of. In an deeply red, Otero County crowd her rhetoric is such that "of course I'm anti-abortion my record speaks such", yet her websites deletion of any reference to her stance on abortion, and her avoidance of those conversations with more moderate crowds is a hedge that she hopes will push her over the edge in a what will be a very tight and very expensive race against incumbent Gabe Vasquez. 

Moderate womenthe the overall turnout of moderates, liberals and independents this year will make or break the campaign of Gabe Vasquez, who is sparing yet again, with Ms. Herrell for NMCD2 and the actions of Ms. Herrell deleting references to her abortion stance shows her campaign views her stance as a vulnerability in the upcoming election of 2024. Stay tuned...

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