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In the months following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, popular support for abortion has energized Democratsespecially womenand cut into Republicans polling leads ahead of the midterms.

The latest Pew polling shows that 62 percent of Americans think that abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances. Gallup polling from May found that 35 percent of Americans supported abortion under any circumstances, and 50 percent supported it only under certain circumstances. Last months referendum on abortion rights in Kansas is a strong indicator that restricting abortion access is a losing issue.

Predictably, a handful of Republicans running for office are now walking back their anti-abortion stances.Here are a few.

Blake Masters, the Peter Thiel protg who is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona has significantly altered his public pose.

As NBC News has reported, Masters campaign website once said, I am 100% pro-life and outlined his support for a federal personhood law (ideally a Constitutional amendment) that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed.Now, the bullet point that said PROTECT BABIES, DONT LET THEM BE KILLED has been removed from his policy page. (Dont worry, the Wayback Machine archived it.)

Before updating his website to remove the pro-life claim, Masters released an ad seeking to characterize Kellys stance on abortion as extreme. Look, I support a ban on very late-term and partial-birth abortion, and most Americans agree with that, Masters said in the ad.

Setting aside that partial-birth abortion is a political and legal term for an extremely rare medical procedure known as dilation and extraction, Masters statement that he supports a ban on late abortions isnt exactly a lie: People who are 100% pro-life do support those bansand all other bans, too. But if Masters is implying that he hasnt been flagrant in his support of much more than just that ban then his campaign ad is nothing more than a clever flip-flop.

In the ad, Masters goes on to state that the only countries that support Kellys no-limits, extreme abortion policies are China and North Korea. Thats just plain false.

Masters isnt the only Republican pandering to voters via campaign ads. Republican Scott Jensen, who is running to unseat Minnesotas Democratic governor Tim Walz, told Minnesota Public Radio in March that if elected, I would try to ban abortion.

Then, after it became clear that that wasnt a great idea politically, Jensen released an unsettling video of him cradling a babyin which he declares: Abortion is divisive, and Tim Walz is weaponizing the issue. In Minnesota, its a protected, constitutional right, and no governor can change that.

Other Republicans, like Joe ODea, who is running for Senate in overwhelmingly pro-choice Colorado, are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

For months, ODea refused to specify how he would approach the issue if he were elected. But hes also the same guy who once voted yes on a proposition that sought to ban abortion after 22 weeks in Colorado with no exceptions for rape and incest.

ODea finally announced his more moderate stance last month: Legal abortion through 20 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.

This is a growing list. If you know of any Republicans who are trying to soften their stance on abortion to garner votes, drop me a line at aweinberg@motherjones.com.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the office for which ODea is running. He is running for Senate.

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Republicans Are Desperately Trying to Change Their Tune on Abortion Mother Jones - Mother Jones