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THE PRO-LIFE ADVANTAGE Being pro-life gives a candidate an advantage among voters: *A 2002 Zogby International post-election poll conducted in nine states with hotly contested Senate races found that 41% of the voters said the abortion issue affected their vote. Twenty-three percent voted for the pro-life candidate while 16% voted for the pro-abortion candidate-- a 7% advantage for the pro-life candidate. A 2002 CBS/New York Times poll (November 20-24) found that abortion tied for second place as the biggest vote-getter for Republican U.S. House candidates. Six percent of those voting for Republican U.S. candidates cited abortion as the most important issue in deciding their vote while zero percent of those who voted for Democratics U.S. House candidates cited abortion as the reason. * A 2000 Wirthlin Worldwide post-election poll found that 42% of the voters said that abortion affected their vote. Twenty-three percent voted for pro-life candidates and 19% voted for pro-abortion candidates-- a 4% advantage for pro-life candidates in general. A Los Angeles Times exit poll found that 14% said abortion was one of the top two issues in voting for president. They voted 58% to 41% for George Bush. The poll showed George W. Bush with a 2.4% advantage on abortion. In a 2001 Democratic Leadership Council study, A Why Gore Lost and What= s Next for the Democrats,@ pollster Mark Penn found that Gore won on most specific issues. The three exceptions were guns, taxes, and abortion. Penn= s poll found that 7% of the voters cared deeply about abortionC they went 61% to 30% for George Bush, a net gain of 2.2 percentage points for Bush. * A 1998 Wirthlin Worldwide post-election poll found that 22% of all voters said abortion affected the way they voted. Of those, 59% (13% of all voters) voted for candidates who oppose abortion while 41% (9% of all voters) voted for candidates who favor abortion, giving pro-life candidates a 4% advantage. * In a 1996 post-election Wirthlin Worldwide survey, 12% of the voters said abortion was one of the two most important issues in deciding their vote. Of those, 45% voted for Bob Dole compared to 35% who voted for Bill Clinton. These results were mirrored by a Los Angeles Times exit poll in which 14% of Dole voters cited abortion as one of the two most important issues, compared to 7% of Clinton voters. * A 1994 post-election poll by Wirthlin Worldwide found that 18% of all voters stated that abortion affected their vote and they voted for candidates who oppose abortion, while only 9% of all voters stated that abortion affected their vote and that they voted for candidates who favor abortion-- a 9% advantage for pro-life candidates. * Figures from a 1992 exit-poll conducted by Voter Research and Surveys show that 13% of all voters listed abortion as one of the top two issues which mattered most in deciding their vote. Of those, 55% voted for Bush and 36% voted for Clinton. * An ABC News exit poll in 1988 found that 19% of all voters said abortion was A very important@ and they voted for George Bush while 14% said abortion was A very important@ and voted for Michael Dukakis. USA Today acknowledged the importance of abortion in the election, writing, A Despite all the TV ads and speeches on prison furloughs and the Pledge of Allegiance, few voters cited those as key issues. The No. 1 issue: abortion, cited by nearly a third of voters interviewed by ABC News. And those who cited abortion went for Bush. |