The following excerpt from an interview with Ralph Reed (a friend of President Trump and long-time lobbyist for Evangelical Christian policies) sheds a lot of light into what's going on:

Tina Nguyen: Let’s start with an easy, non-controversial topic. Voters have overwhelmingly turned out to enshrine abortion access in their state constitutions, and often cite a candidate’s position on the topic as a deciding factor in the voting booth. The issue will be on the ballots in swing states like Colorado and Florida in November. What do you make of the backlash to Dobbs?

Ralph Reed: On the 40th anniversary of Roe, Time magazine had that famous cover where they said the feminists won a historic victory with Roe v. Wade. The sub headline was “… and they’ve been losing ever since”—which was true. From the time of Roe until Dobbs, the feminists in the pro-abortion lobby did nothing but lose. And we began our long march through the institutions, through the courts, through Congress, through the presidency, and through state legislatures, and systematically restricted abortion and protected innocent human life. My greatest concern is that 40 years from now, somebody’s going to write a headline like that about us: that Dobbs was the greatest victory in the history of our movement—and then after that, all we did was lose. And so the question is, what do we do about that?

I think the answer is that we respond in the post-Dobbs environment exactly the way we did in the post-Roe environment, in the sense that it’s all about state legislative action. The Democrats are the real extremists here—and Joe Biden is the real extremist—because they’re for abortion on demand. You can debate when [life begins], but for all practical purposes, [they claim that it’s] at any stage of pregnancy, and they want to pay for it with tax dollars—which means repealing the Hyde Amendment, which Joe Biden supported for 42 years. If you do the polling on this, by the way, the majority of the American people are fine with restrictions, at the absolute latest, after the first trimester.

I guess it was in Hillary’s interview with The New York Times that created so much buzz, in which she said, “Our formula was always safe, legal, and rare.” Remember, Roe was based on a trimester system, and the argument was that after the first trimester, it was going to be possible to restrict, and therefore it would be very rare. And it would be legal, and therefore safe. And she said that her campaign advisors told her, “You can’t say ‘rare’ anymore.” That’s when the party transitioned to on-demand, making it paid for under Medicaid. It’s treated as if it’s a positive good.

Elective abortions paid for under Medicaid, which the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, has estimated to have led to as many as 300,000 additional abortions a year—if you do the polling on this, our position is a winning position. It’s where the majority of the American people are. They don’t want unlimited abortion, and they don’t want to pay for [it with] tax dollars. The problem is that in a campaign environment, that’s doing us very little good, because they’re able to run these ads saying, “So and so is for a federal ban on abortion.” And after that, you’re explaining, and when you’re explaining, you’re losing.

We just have to plow through this current environment. President Trump, who will be the nominee, is going to emphasize state legislative action. We should emphasize state legislative action. And neither the pro-choice nor the pro-abortion side is going to be able to pass any sweeping federal legislation anyway.

The pro-abortion movement is enjoying a short-term sugar high with these initiative and referendum victories, but eventually those will come to an end. Because there’s a limit to the number of states that have initiative and referendum [systems]. And then it’ll be our turn. We’ll go state by state and do what we did before Dobbs.

Tina Nguyen: That sugar high will drive Democrats and pro-choice Republicans out to vote in this election cycle, though. What are G.O.P. candidates saying to you about how they plan to navigate this environment?

Ralph Reed: First of all, this has been a highly organic process, worked out between candidates, campaign strategists, the party, the pro-life and pro-family movement, all working symbiotically and in a highly organic fashion to arrive at what to do. What you’re seeing is candidates saying either, “I don’t support a federal bill,” or if they don’t say that, they certainly say, “A federal bill isn’t going to move anytime soon.” Steve Daines said that, and he’s the chair of the Senatorial Committee. Mike Johnson has said that.

The second thing that they say is, “I support my state. I support my state’s legislation.” That’s what Rick Scott has said in Florida. He said, “I support the Florida legislation, but there’s not going to be any federal legislation.” And if you look at the polling, that’s where most voters are in terms of these initiatives. For candidates, I think you just say what Rubio, Rick Scott, Kari Lake, and others have said: This is abortion on demand, unlimited, at any stage of pregnancy. The good news is that in Florida they need 60 percent. I’m not saying they can’t get 60 percent, but I can tell you it’s going to be hard.

Tina Nguyen: You don’t think Trump loses trust among evangelicals by declining to back a national ban?

He is going to be given significantly more slack from the evangelical and pro-life voters because of everything that he did to deliver on the life issue as president. I have to be honest with you, I don’t know that anybody other than Trump would get that running room. He gets that forgiveness because he delivered and kept his promises on the courts, on defunding Planned Parenthood. He spoke to the March for Life. Would any other candidate be given that level of deference? I doubt it.