Abortion May Be Mobilizing More Democratic Voters Than Republicans Now
The partisan struggle over abortion has been an enduring feature of American politics. But the parties have not prioritized it equally — the issue has consistently animated Republican voters more than Democrats. Two new surveys, however, reveal a remarkable shift in how important the issue of abortion is to Democrats and Republicans ahead of the 2018 midterm election.
First, a recent PRRI survey found that nearly half (47 percent) of Democrats said abortion is a critically important issue to them personally; 40 percent of Republicans said the same. That represents a dramatic swing since 2015, when 36 percent of Democrats and 43 percent of Republicans said abortion was a critical concern. Democrats are almost twice as likely today to rate the issue as critical as they were in 2011.
Democrats are also increasingly likely to say abortion is an important voting issue. A recent Pew poll showed that abortion is a far more central voting concern for Democrats today than it has been at any point in the last decade — 61 percent of Democratic voters said abortion is very important to their vote this year. In 2008, only 38 percent of Democratic voters said the same. That’s roughly the same percentage of Democratic voters who say terrorism, taxes, immigration, the federal budget deficit or trade policy is an important voting issue.
Why do Democrats care more about abortion now?
The most obvious answer is that the right appears imperiled in a way that it hasn’t been in recent years. Even before Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement in June, Democrats were expressing concerns about whether abortion could become illegal in the U.S. More than 4 in 10 Democrats, including 45 percent of Democratic women, said it was at least somewhat likely that abortion would become completely illegal within their lifetime, according to a March PRRI poll.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/abortion-may-be-mobilizing-more-democratic-voters-than-republicans-now/
= new reply since forum marked as read
that it's not just about abortion. Repubs have been on a "Christian" crusade to end all forms of birth control and most forms of women's health care.
I'm speaking collectively, of course, but as the news cycle continues to turn and the moves Repubs have been making get more and more press, I think more and more women are starting to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Who's really working for me?" Increasingly, that is definitely NOT the Repub party, which looks like it wants to implement the Handmaid's Tale in real life.
… it's always been a concern. Each family, couple or single woman should be able to plan their own baby decisions... the government's job is to help them, not tell them when and how to make babies!
