Democrats are already worried that their intense focus on abortion may not be enough to overcome increasing national attention to immigration. But that's not the only problem they are facing as they head into this election. It turns out they may also have bitten off more than they can chew. There are abortion battles taking place in states across the country but funding all those battles at once turns out to be impossible. Instead, Democrats find themselves having to prioritize which battles will get big money support and which may not get any support.

From deep-red Arkansas and Missouri to purple Arizona and Nevada, activists are already competing with each other for a limited pool of cash and auditioning for the national progressive groups they need to fund their efforts to enshrine protections in state constitutions...

“If we had an unlimited budget, which we don’t, and unlimited staffing, resources and all of that, then there’d be an expanded map I would like to make a run at, because it is such a crisis,” said Deirdre Schifeling, the chief political and advocacy officer for the American Civil Liberties Union. “But these campaigns are incredibly expensive, so we need to see all the right pieces in place to know where we can be successful.”

One decision that national funding groups like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU appear to have made so far is that any organization promoting a compromise position is not getting funding. So, for instance, a pro-abortion group in Arkansas which is promoting a ballot measure which would allow abortion through 20 weeks of pregnancy has received no funding so far from thee big national groups. A spokesperson for the Tides Foundation explained why.

“Our motto is, ‘No steps backwards,’” said Beth Huang, civic engagement and democracy program officer for the Tides Foundation. “Roe is the floor, and we are prioritizing measures that reestablish the floor. We don’t want to support policies that enable backsliding.”...

Major groups — including Planned Parenthood and the Fairness Project — told POLITICO those state [Arkansas and South Dakota] proposals have “shortcomings” and don’t “align with our values.” Diaz and other red-state activists say they would have adopted more expansive measures if they believed they could pass in such deeply conservative states.

The idea that the left is going to be able to restore Roe as "the floor" in a state like Arkansas seems like a fantasy. If nothing else, the end of Roe at the Supreme Court means pro-abortion activists are going to have to negotiate in places that aren't California or New York. But for the moment it seems they are still allocating money based on ideological purity.

It looks like the game plan on the left is to run up the score in states like New York and Maryland where Democrats really can make Roe the floor of their activism. Other states attracting big money are Arizona and Nevada.

Arizona, a presidential and Senate battleground state where courts could implement a near-total abortion ban at any time, has so far drawn support from the most national groups — raking in more than $5.8 million as of December, including large sums from national organizations like the Fairness Project, Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker’s nonprofit Think Big America and the Advocacy Action Fund, a nonprofit dark money group that does not have to disclose its donors.

We'll see if this works in a few more months. But one thing is certain, Democrats don't have enough money so far to fight this battle everywhere at once.

Finally, there's another story that seems to be getting some traction on the left. The NY Times reported last Friday that Trump personally has expressed interest in a 16 week abortion ban. Trump's camp has said they haven't committed to any such plan.

The Times reported that Trump has privately told associates he “likes the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban with three exceptions, in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.” Trump’s campaign swiftly pushed back against the story.

“As President Trump has stated, he would sit down with both sides and negotiate a deal that everyone will be happy with,” Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, without elaborating on such a deal.

Trump’s team was frustrated by the Times story and said no decision had been made on a national ban. One person who has spoken with Trump on several occasions about abortion said the former president repeatedly said he was not going to be tied down to a specific number of weeks. Another person who met with Trump on the issue late last year said he suggested a 16-week ban as a potential plan, but was noncommittal to backing any sort of ban. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

Maybe there has been talk about this behind the scenes but Trump isn't running on this, as much as Biden might wish he were. Still, out of sheer desperation on the left, I bet we'll keep hearing about this for months to come.