The national anti-abortion coalition, bolstered by independent voters, has increased to the point of threatening pro-abortion Democrats by a wide 25-point margin.
In a new survey for the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, timed to coincide with the surprise Supreme Court decision to consider a challenge to Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks, 53% of likely voters said they would support a GOP candidate who backs the limit versus 28% for a Democratic supporter of abortion on demand.
The split among voters grows even wider when those polled are told that “an unborn child has the capacity to feel pain.”
In his analysis of the data, pollster Wes Anderson of OnMessage Inc. said, “There is a strong center-right coalition that supports the Supreme Court allowing significant limits on abortion. In short, a strong majority of voters oppose unrestricted, abortion on demand, throughout pregnancy.”
And, he said, the political impact could be significant. “This study strongly indicates that the pro-life side of the issue enjoys significantly more intensity than the pro-choice side. Politically, the pendulum has swung decisively in our direction.”
The court’s decision to consider the challenge to the Mississippi ban is considered the first major abortion case since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to OK abortion. That has sparked a new fight over abortion and elevated it to a top issue in the 2022 midterm elections.
It is also likely to highlight the differences between President Joe Biden’s efforts to clear all hurdles nationally and internationally to abortion and former President Donald Trump’s embrace of the pro-life cause.
The survey, provided exclusively to Secrets, also comes on the heels of a $2 million national campaign by the SBA List to highlight “the humanity of unborn children” in advance of the court’s decision.
We’re launching an initial $2M campaign highlighting the humanity of unborn children as the Supreme Court prepares to review a landmark abortion case
Watch the ad: pic.twitter.com/3xNV0Mm4sm
— Susan B. Anthony List #HydeSavesLives (@SBAList) May 26, 2021
In the survey, Anderson said that independents are breaking pro-life when asked about choosing a Republican or Democrat in an election. “This question yields a strong center-right coalition for life, with independents supporting the GOP/15 week limit candidate over the Democrat/abortion on demand candidate 54% to 18%. At the same time Republicans break 90% to 3% on the question. That is the definition of a strong center-right coalition,” he said.
And the survey found that on a scale of importance from 1 to 10, 43% of likely pro-life voters identified abortion as being very important in deciding their vote for an elected official, while only 29% of pro-choice voters said the same.
SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said that the survey should be a warning sign to Democrats who take a full-speed-ahead approach to abortion.
“The majority of voters reject late-term abortion and the Democratic candidates who shamefully advocate for it. At 15 weeks, unborn children can feel pain, and most European countries limit abortions at this point. There is strong support among the American people for our nation’s laws to finally catch up with science and international norms,” she said.
