Women are increasingly telling pollsters that since the passage of the Texas bill essentially banning abortions that the issue of Choice has become foremost in their minds. When asked how important the issue of abortion is to them, 44% of registered voters say "very important" and 27% say "somewhat important." 29% say it isn't important at all. But what about the ladies?
• All women
very important- 47% (men- 36%)
somewhat important- 27% (men- 27%)
not very important- 18% (men- 22%)
unimportant- 8% (men- 15%)
• White women with college degrees
very important- 54% (white men with degrees- 36%)
somewhat important- 24% (white men with degrees- 28%)
not very important- 17% (white men with degrees- 23%)
unimportant- 5% (white men with degrees- 12%)
Interestingly, the region where people think it's the most important-- the South, because that is where the threat is most dire, not just in Texas, but in every state with a Republican-controlled legislature and a Republican governor... basically every Southern state but Louisiana and Kentucky, red states with, miraculously, Democratic governors.
Now let's swing over to a Pew survey of states, long before Texas passed the anti-Choice legislation, happily signed by their cockamamie governor. It shows what percentage of adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases and what percentage say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. There is not a single blue state that doesn't support legal abortion. But there are several red states where majorities do support the pro-Choice position:
Alaska- 63% pro choice (52.8% Trump)
Florida- 56% pro choice (51.2% Trump)
Montana- 56% pro choice (56.9% Trump)
Iowa- 52% pro choice (53.1% Trump)
Oklahoma- 51% pro choice (65.4% Trump)
Nebraska- 50% pro choice (58.2% Trump)
Three other very crucial red states have pluralities favoring Choice-- along with Senate elections next year.
Arizona- 49% pro-Choice/46% anti-Choice (49.1% Trump)
North Carolina- 49% pro-Choice/45% anti-Choice (49.9% Trump)
Ohio- 48% pro-Choice/47% anti-Choice (53.3% Trump)
Last night, Alan Grayson, the progressive in the Florida Senate race, pointed out that "On abortion, Rubio has made a fatal mistake for any politician: confusing his opinion with public opinion. Next year, he’ll find out that people on our side also view the right to choose as a moral issue. The right to decide what to do with your own body is the most fundamental right of all."
On Friday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an OpEd by the best of the Ohio Senate candidates, Morgan Harper: If reproductive choice matters in Ohio, I am the right U.S. Senate candidate at the right time. Harper reminder her readers that this isn't just about Texas. "In Ohio," she wrote, "Gov. Mike DeWine signed the so-called heartbeat bill. Before that law could take effect, it was stayed by a federal judge on grounds that it would place an 'undue burden' on a woman’s right to choose. Several of the leading Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate in Ohio have voiced support for the Supreme Court decision and the Texas law. J.D. Vance even called on Twitter for Ohio and other states to pass copycat versions of the Texas law. These candidates are out of step with a majority of Ohio’s voters, including a significant number of Republicans."
I’m running for the U.S. Senate as an unapologetically pro-choice candidate-- and I’m the only candidate among the major Democratic and Republican candidates in this race who has always stood firm in my support for a woman’s right to make her own decision about her body and health care.
In the U.S. Senate, I’ll do everything in my power to stop the Republicans from attacking our basic constitutional rights.
That is why Congress needs to move immediately to codify Roe v Wade into federal law. There is already legislation in Congress to do so, called the Women’s Health Protection Act. The bill has 48 co-sponsors in the Senate, including primary sponsor Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut-- just three votes short of a majority. This highlights the stakes for Democrats to win the U.S. Senate seat being vacated in Ohio by Sen. Rob Portman in 2022.
Second, it is long past time we eliminate the filibuster, a legislative relic of the Jim Crow era, frequently used to stop civil rights legislation.
It was wrong then and certainly should not be used now by extremist Republicans to circumvent basic constitutional rights.
Finally, we need to move to expand the Supreme Court and give President Joe Biden the opportunity to appoint pro-choice justices to represent fully the opinion of the majority of the public.
Please consider contributing to Morgan, Alan and the other the pro-Choice Senate candidates by clicking on the 2022 Blue America Senate thermometer on the left and giving what you can. Small contributions, even in Senate races, are what progressive campaigns are built on. There is no such thing as a contribution too small. In the end, they add up to viable campaigns and help election people to Congress like AOC, Cori Bush, Ed Markey, Bernie, Rashida, Pramila, Ayanna, Jamaal, Mondaire...
A poll that Morning Consult released last week shows that Democrats are leading in the generic congressional election polling, 43- 39%, with 17% undecided. Women are more undecided than men (21% vs 13%) and at this moment men ate more inclined to vote Democratic than women are-- 46% men and 42% women. Men are also more inclined to vote for Republicans than women are-- 41% vs 38%.
Morning Consult reported that "At this point, 60 weeks from Election Day, neither party has a significant advantage in the suburbs or with independents, two groups that have trended away from Republicans during the past two election cycles and caused the party to lose its grip on both Capitol Hill and the White House. The poll also found neither party had a strong advantage among men or women, though men were slightly more likely than women to say they’d vote for a Democrat."
Republicans are slightly more enthusiastic about voting now-- 58% vs 54% for Democrats. The Democrats are going to have to do two things to win:
1- pass some significant legislation impacting peoples' lives (the Biden agenda being held up by congressional conservative Democrats
2- exploit issues like Choice where the Republicans are already perceived as harming voting blocs-- like the anti-Choice bill in Texas.