Correct positioning won't save you if you're causing friction
A Republican told me once that one of their rules for politics was that the people causing friction get punished, and along with obvious stuff like being the change candidate is usually good I think it's one of the simplest to understand and most important rules to follow. I would go a step further however and add that having the correct position on an issue won't save you if you're ultimately on the side of friction.
What do I mean by that? First an example that Democrats will like, and then one that some won't. In a completely hypothetical world polling shows that most Americans want some reasonable restrictions on abortion. Republicans have now decided that means a ban after 15 weeks, sometimes with exceptions and sometimes they don't clarify. About 90% of abortions are performed before 15 weeks, so you may be tempted to ask why they are now willing to accept a 10% settlement on their core moral issue that's driven their politics for two generations. And that would be a good question - because in the non-hypothetical real world that we live in, most Americans if given a choice are pro-freedom on this issue and side generally with those who don't want restrictions, not those who do.
So Republicans like Gov. Glenn Youngkin of VA, even though their position is in theory kind of the sweet spot for a compromise are continuing to be punished by voters because the pro-friction position ultimately is a ban, and they're moving in the direction of bans even though it's a ban that most people could live with. Before Roe was overturned, the status quo was that abortion up to and beyond 15 weeks was generally legal and so chipping away here and there was actually sometimes popular for Republicans, especially since it was us (Dems/liberals) who were being friction-y by moving away from safe/legal/rare language into what the electorate viewed as actually pro-abortions language - famously in Virginia newly elected Democrats pushed to legalize all abortions - including 40 week abortions. Back then that may have helped Youngkin and the Republicans win power in '21 (when Roe was still around) but putting those same comments in an ad now probably backfired - because again, even though people don't agree with 40 week abortions, the people who want to keep abortion legal are now the anti-friction people. Our actual position beyond that doesn't matter that much, even if the polling indicates otherwise.
Now for an example Democrats won't like but is kind of the mirror image of this. Many Democrats have criminal justice reform positions that poll well and are popular but time and again lose or barely beat Republicans with positions that are toxic with the electorate (such as being dismissive outright of police brutality). Just this past week, the incumbent former Democrat in Allegheny County (now a Republican) defeated a liberal public defender challenger to stay on as DA. The incumbent won 52-48, while the Democrat running for Supreme Court statewide carried the county 63-37. A Democratic socialist running for county executive barely won 51-49 on the same day in a race that heavily featured crime. This is a nearly 2:1 Democratic county that hasn't voted for a Republican for President since 1972, but by embracing and/or failing to shut the doors to the friction position on crime - defunding the police, abolishing prison, not taking violent crime serious, the electorate just makes a binary choice to not even really explore the nuance of their positions further up the ideological spectrum. They may even largely agree with them on things like pre-trial diversion or attacking the root causes of crime, but by embracing friction, the discussion is over for many people. And that extends to excusing the truly horrible anti-reform language that many Republicans use - the issue is the friction surrounding defunding police, anything beyond that is noise.
In Snohomish County Washington, a more purple-ish county (Dems typically win about 58%, Republicans last won the Presidency in 1988 there), a truly toxic right wing sheriff was barely defeated by a moderate Democrat. It probably helped that she was a former sheriff's deputy who was supported by five former sheriffs, the corrections union and others, but you can still see the kind of penalty that even a normal candidate who says and does the right things pays because as a party we've embraced friction on this issue.
Now for some good news - opposing abortion is a key moral position for most conservatives so there probably isn't an easy way out for them. Instead of just dropping the issue and letting only the most red states like Mississippi have ongoing bans, the incentive structure on the Republican side is likely going to spend a lot of time on one-simple-trick ways to fix their problems, or embracing lame PR that tries to fool themselves into thinking 18 year olds are part of some new pro-life generation. That's going to be a tough issue for them to fix.
But 99% of Democrats do not embrace as a core position defunding the police or abolishing prison, so we can actually fix this friction by just saying forcefully that we oppose it. Are we going to make the furthest and most fringe leftist/progressive elements of our coalition upset? Probably. But if you can't win a DA's race in a 63-37 Democratic county, what good are they to the coalition?