Just days after former President Donald Trump partially blamed the "abortion issue" for GOP losses in last year's midterm elections, a proxy battle between potential 2024 GOP primary candidates has emerged over the line on state abortion bans.
The rift comes between South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem's communications chief Ian Fury and The National Review reporter Nate Hochman, who Fury called a shill for Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The issues around transgender rights and abortion – after the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision kicked abortion law back to the states in June – fueled the firestorm.
"Gov. Noem was the only governor in America on national television defending the Dobbs decision," Fury shot back at a Hochman report criticizing Noem's careful steps on transgender law in her state with a headline reading: "How Gender Ideology Conquered South Dakota."
"Where was Gov. DeSantis? Hiding behind a 15-week ban. Does he believe that 14-week-old babies don't have a right to live?"
Fury, after taking shots from Hochman's latest review of their exchanges, feeding the Democratic National Committee "War Room" some fodder of a divided GOP and Noem versus DeSantis – albeit by proxy – posted a thread on Twitter, explaining his positions in the debate.
".@njhochman long ago outed himself as someone with an unhealthy bias against @KristiNoem," Fury's 12-post thread began. "When his narrative is proven false, he doesn't let facts get in the way of his efforts to take her down. Here are a few of the most egregious errors in his most recent reporting."
Fury noted Hochman suggesting Noem was allowing "gender ideology" to "conquer South Dakota" ignored the detail that Noem kicked back laws she did not believe would ultimately survive legal challenges, as she told Newsmax in an exclusive sit-down at the Ronald Reagan ranch in September 2021.
"Nate's hatred of Gov. Noem stems from utter ignorance of her position on fairness in girls' sports," Fury's thread continued. "Gov. Noem was not willing to sign a bad bill and set the movement back, so she signed EOs until she could pass the best bill in the country. Nate ignores these facts here."
Ultimately, while Fury did question DeSantis' acceptance of a 15-week abortion ban as an "acceptable" compromise for state abortion law, the fight was between Fury (not Noem) and Hochman (not DeSantis).
"Facts matter. Truth matters," Fury's thread concluded. "Nate doesn't care about either — not so long as he's taking another shot at the most conservative governor in America, who he sees as the biggest threat to his preferred politician."