Abortion could swing persuadable Republican to the Democrats

John Micek on May 12, 2022

Those voters likely are “the kinds of people who may be persuadable either way on the topic of abortion,” the analysis found.

Meanwhile, preventing women from losing access to safe and legal abortion services “emerges as one of the stronger issues for motivating Democratic base and swing voters to get to the polls in 2022 and potentially persuading Republican-leaning voters near the Democratic vs. Republican dividing line to shift their voting intentions to the other side from their present leanings,” the analysis found.

Even so, data suggests that, overall, abortion is still a more powerful tool to motivate Democrats than it is in swinging persuadable Republicans, analysts cautioned.

But, and this a big but, “these voters present as open to maintaining a woman’s right to choose on abortion and the idea that America should be doing more to ensure this, not less.”

Whether that’s enough to trump bigger issues such as the economy and inflation or improve the field for Democrats in a year expected to favor Republicans was not immediately clear, the analysts wrote.

But it does mean that Democrats will have to do something that they’re demonstrably awful at doing, and that’s laser-focusing their messaging in the run-up to the November general election.

Stranger things have been known to happen. Not many. But some.

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An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek. Copyright 2022 John L. Micek, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.