Donald Trump isn’t backing a national abortion ban. That’s not hurting him in

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump is dominating the early stages of the Republican presidential primary even as he’s refused to endorse a federal ban on abortion, allowing some top rivals to get to the right of him on an issue that animates many conservative activists.

Aiming to return to the White House, the former president often notes how his presidency advanced the cause of abortion opponents. He appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, abolishing the federally guaranteed right to the procedure and fulfilling the decades-long aspirations of anti-abortion activists.

But Trump has so far declined to go along with some of his rivals, most notably his onetime vice president, Mike Pence, who is pushing for national bans that would take effect relatively early into a pregnancy. He’s also warned Republicans against locking themselves into positions that are unpopular with a majority of the public, and has argued that the Supreme Court’s decision gives abortion opponents the right to “negotiate” restrictions where they live rather than rely on federal curbs.

That tension underscores the new reality the GOP finds itself in more than a year into the post-Roe era. While top Republicans were long able to simply declare themselves opposed to abortion, they must now contend with more complicated questions — including when access should be banned and whether uniform standards might apply across the U.S., even in states where support for abortion rights runs deep.

“There’s a wide variety of opinion. Should there be a national ban? At how many weeks? Should it be entirely left to the states?” said Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition and a Republican National Committee member. “Some people get it wrong when they think this constituency is in lockstep.”

The dynamic will be on fresh display in the coming days, at events dominated by social conservatives. Trump is joining a crowded slate of candidates speaking Friday in Washington at an event for the Family Research Council, and is headlining the Concerned Women for America’s Leadership Summit dinner. But he’s skipping Scheffler’s Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition banquet on Saturday in Des Moines, where five other candidates will address evangelical Christians, long an influential bloc in the first-in-the-nation caucus.

Polling suggests about two-thirds of Americans believe abortion should generally be legal, and Trump has said in recent years that he supports exceptions to abortion bans when a pregnancy was caused by rape or incest or threatens the life of the mother.

“It’s probably cost us politically because the other side got energized,” he told a rally in South Dakota last week of the Supreme Court ruling, while noting that it “moves the issue back to the states, where every legal scholar said it should be.”

Indeed, in the aftermath of the high court’s abortion decision, Democrats mounted a strong performance in last year’s midterms, limiting their House losses and maintaining the Senate majority. Voters in…