Abortion was a 50/50 issue. Now, it's Republican quicksand.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

Abortion was a 50/50 issue. Now, it’s Republican quicksand.
Six in 10 voters support legal abortion in most cases. Just over a third want it to be entirely or mostly illegal.

Conservatives are finding out the hard way that abortion isn’t a 50-50 issue anymore.

Janet Protasiewicz’s 11-point blowout victory this week for a state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin was just the latest example of voters who support abortion rights outnumbering — and outvoting — their opponents. There was little polling in Tuesday’s race, but in a 2022 midterm exit poll of the state, a combined 63 percent of Wisconsin voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while only 34 percent thought it should be illegal in all or most cases.

Moreover, for the 31 percent of 2022 voters who said abortion was their most important issue — second only to inflation at 34 percent — they overwhelmingly backed Democratic Gov. Tony Evers (83 percent) and Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes (81 percent), who lost narrowly to GOP Sen. Ron Johnson.


Going back to the 1990s, Gallup polling showed Americans divided roughly evenly between those who called themselves “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” Exit polls from the 1990s and 2000s showed voters who said abortion or “moral values” were most important to their vote supported Republican candidates in greater numbers.

But those surveys were conducted when a right to an abortion was law of the land. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision last year ending that constitutional right has exposed Americans’ broad opposition to the strict abortion bans adopted or proposed in GOP-controlled states. And it’s revealed that public surveys on the matter probably need more nuanced questions now.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/08/republican-party-abortion-trap-00091088

[Meadowoak]

1. Abortion was never a 50/50 issue.

[brush]

2. Seems Dobbs was a slight miscalculation, but they keep doubling down...

one it with all the red stateabortion laws and the Texas judge banning abortion pills nationwide.

Guess they never want the vast majority of women to vote for republicans again. We Dems will most likely take back the House in '24 and retain the Senate majority as well because of this rabid and nonsensical overreach.

[Sky Jewels]

7. The other thing is, Republicans are losing an entire generation, and most of another.

Gen Z will tilt big-time Democratic for years to come, and, to a slightly lesser extent, so will Millennials.

[brush]

10. Yes. Even better. Women and younger voters against them.

Please proceed on the same course, republicns.

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. Interesting.

Easy to be "pro-life" when the issue isn't on the table. When it is, there's a sudden shift of the "pro-life" to ""pro common sense".

[Gidney N Cloyd]

4. That third that wants it "entirely or mostly illegal" needs to be reminded why it was legalized.

Frightened, desperate women were fucking DYING.

Americans and their damned short memories...

[Silent3]

5. A good portion of that one third don't care

Reminders of the pre-Roe world won't change their minds a bit.

[Sky Jewels]

6. I'll never get over the smug Republican mfers sneering in summer/early fall of 2022 about

how abortion wasn't a consequential issue, people would forget about Dobbs by the November election, and only "real" issues (i.e., those that mattered to [white] men), like inflation and economics, would be important (as if abortion is NOT an economic issue!). Even some Democrats were trying to shift the narrative to other issues. A lot of us women were looking at each other like, "Are you fucking kidding me!?"

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

9. and nonstop talk of "red wave" coming.

their faces on election day

[Sky Jewels]

11. Yep.

Even I could see there would be no red wave. I knew the hype was wishful thinking on the part of the GOP and the Republican-enabling corporate media + very skewed polling (over representing older white males, etc.) + deliberate downplaying of the electorate’s post-Dobbs anger. As if half the population being being stripped of fundamental rights is an issue that would fade in light of the rising cost of avocados!

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

12. right after Dodds decision, i saw some graffitti on the wall about reprod rights.

something I had never seen before... then I knew there was bubbling anger.

it was written with a pencil or pen in my suburban area.

[ThoughtCriminal]

8. It was a big deal with "Single Issue" voters

If one believed that "abortion is murder", it becomes a single issue for those voters. It did not matter what other issues a candidate supported or how corrupt - they could get these votes by pandering to religious-right.

For some pro-choice libertarian voters, voting for anti-choice conservatives it was not a deal breaker as long as Roe blocked anti-abortion legislation. That is not longer the case.