• chiliedogg@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    16
    ·
    5 months ago

    Pro-choice is poison at the General election. It does well as a ballot initiative, but the reality is that very few pro-choice moderates and right-leaning people will change their vote over the issue, whereas pro-lifers are far and away the strongest single-issue voting group.

    If Harris and Trump were identical in every way except their stance on abortion, how many Dem voters would flip for Trump in order to vote pro-choice? Would you?

    Because millions of people who are otherwise liberal-leaning vote based on their pro-lifer position.

    The biggest reason Dems got a Roe boost in 2022 was pro-lifer voters who didn’t feel the need to vote Republican because they’d won and could focus on other issues. But running a campaign based on restoring Roe undoes that bump.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      5 months ago

      That’s not what the data tells us. If that was the case the abortion referendums would have failed while Democrats got a push. But they didn’t. They consistently succeeded in even the reddest areas. Abortion protections gets people out to vote.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        Abortion refferendums are easy.

        A pro-choice gun nut won’t vote Democrat because he cares more about guns than the right to choose. But when you put it as a ballot initiative he doesn’t have to weigh it against anything else.

        The thing about single-issue voters is that they can swing elections even though they’re a minority. The GOP has survived for decades by embracing the pro-life and pro-gun voters. These are massive groups with voters on one side who will base the entirety of their vote on the issue, while the other side of the debate doesn’t.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          5 months ago

          The GOP has survived for decades because we vote for land, not people. They consistently hold majorities in government with a minority of the population.

    • fubarx
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      5 months ago

      2022 should have been a red wave, but wasn’t. There are proposals to make draconian anti-abortion laws national and override state protections.

      I wouldn’t underestimate its power to reengage voters, especially the youth vote.