By Big Margin, New Voters Are Pro-Life
By Dave Andrusko

"America's newest voters to enter the political process are predominately pro-life. Over half (54%) of first-time voters call themselves pro-life, while only 43 percent say they are pro-choice. Moreover, those new pro-life voters are more likely than the pro-choicers to care enough about abortion to base their vote on it."

From an article in the November 19 New York Post, based on Pace University's Pace Poll

Jonathan Trichter is the director and Christopher Paige is the assistant director of the Pace Poll, and they are co-authors of the New York Post op-ed. The results are all the more significant since the Pace Poll worked in conjunction with the notoriously pro-abortion group "Rock the Vote."

The findings cited above came from the third of three surveys conducted by phone November 4-11. (The Pace Poll brags that it was "the only poll to predict correctly that new voters would split their loyalties almost evenly between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry.")

According to the tabulation, 66% said abortion affected their decision. "[W]e found considerable support for the conventional wisdom that pro-life, rather than pro-choice, voters are the most likely to vote on the abortion issue; 77% of Republicans compared to just 56% of Democrats say abortion mattered to their vote; 75% of Bush voters, but just 60% of Kerry voters say the issue affected their decision."

The analysis also notes that more new voters self-identify as evangelicals (39%) than the national average (23%), and they are "more likely than voters as a whole to cite 'moral issues' as critical reasons for voting the way they did, while simultaneously giving more prominence to abortion."

Indeed, "moral values" were "more important - - off the charts, really - - to new voters who are Republicans (75% say this affected their decision a lot), Southerners (68% a lot), or evangelicals (67% a lot)."

These and other findings led the Pace Poll to "suggest that Democrats are losing the culture wars among new voters."

As noted, this was the third of three surveys. According to the first benchmark results, published July 26, who are these new voters?

"New voters are religious," the Pace Poll reports. "More than 4 in 10 (42%) attend religious services once a week, and an additional 16% attend church once or twice a month."

When it comes to "political issues," 36% say they consider themselves conservatives, while 29% say liberal. Asked whom do they think of themselves as, 37% say Democrat and 36% say Republican.

The first paragraph of the Pace Poll's conclusion is worth quoting in full:

"Contrary to the conventional wisdom, new voters - - like voters generally - - split about evenly between the two major party candidates. In addition, new voters are not more likely to be liberals; to the contrary, they are more likely to be pro-life, evangelical, and slightly more likely to be conservative. Moral values, gay marriage, and abortion appear to be their motivating issues."