The AP is reporting that “After Alabama, abortion may be backseat issue in 2018 races.” Hmmmm. Seems like a bit of wishful thinking on their part if you ask me.
Yeah AP, suddenly, all us pro-lifers have given up and now you’re free to run your agenda and create a utopia while us oogedy-boogedy religious Neanderthals get out of your way.
Here’s the honest truth. I get why many people would’ve felt uncomfortable voting for Roy Moore. I get staying home on election day. But I really don’t get casting a vote for radical pro-abortion nutjob Doug Jones if you’re a pro-lifer.
But, in the end, Alabama was sort of a one-off. And I get why Dems want to think that suddenly abortion will no longer be an issue but it’s not the truth. Look, Republicans have been a spineless mess on pretty much every issue conservatives care about. But many conservatives keep voting Republican because there’s a hope that we get more Gorsuchs or maybe someday we actually defund Planned Parenthood. Maybe? So it’s actually the opposite of what you think AP. Pro-lifers care so much about abortion and euthanasia that they’re willing to support Republicans who they don’t trust or particularly like.
But anyway, here’s the latest wishcast by the Associated Press:
Exit polls show Jones won a third of voters who said abortion should be illegal in most cases, and 27 percent of those who want it outlawed completely.
These numbers suggest that abortion may not necessarily be a defining issue in the 2018 midterm elections.
Abortion is “still a dividing line in American politics,” said Republican pollster Greg Strimple, who surveys voters for the Congressional Leadership Fund, the political action committee backed by Speaker Paul Ryan that is helping defend the GOP’s House majority.
But a candidate’s stand on abortion mobilizes only slices of the two parties’ bases, and for most every voter in between, “it’s a secondary issue,” Strimple said.There’s an argument that this contest was unusually unsavory for conservatives, making them choose between a man accused of preying on girls, and a Democrat. But it’s clear that Jones’ support of legalized abortion wasn’t a deal-breaker for just enough Republicans to give Democrats a 20,000-vote margin, out of more than 1.35 million votes cast.
That’s heartening for Democrats looking to dent Republican domination in Congress and statehouses by targeting voters dissatisfied with President Donald Trump and unhappy over Republican moves to roll back Democrats’ 2010 health insurance expansion and push tax cuts tilted to corporations and wealthy individuals.
“We are competing on a massive offensive battlefield, in districts that went for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and that are suburban, rural and urban,” said Meredith Kelly of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Regardless of where they are running, (our) candidates have no reason to compromise on their support for a woman’s health care, her right to choose, and her economic security.”
The media no longer reports on reality. They report reality as they wish it to be and hope we buy it. We’re not.
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