标题: 2022.08.05 堪萨斯州对堕胎的投票表明许多共和党人支持堕胎 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-8-7 01:42 标题: 2022.08.05 堪萨斯州对堕胎的投票表明许多共和党人支持堕胎 Daily chart
Kansas’s vote on abortion shows many Republicans are pro-choice
The overturning of Roe v Wade has also pushed Democrats and women to the polls
Aug 5th 2022
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Aconstitutional amendment that would have allowed Kansas’s legislature to overturn the right to an abortion failed on August 2nd, dealing a blow to conservative efforts to outlaw the practice. Kansans voted by 59% to 41% to block the amendment, so that abortion will remain legal in the state up to the 22nd week of pregnancy. That compares with the 56% of the state’s electorate that voted for Donald Trump, the anti-abortion candidate, in the presidential election in 2020. Given that such a traditionally red state upheld abortion rights, it is likely that most others would, too. The Economist’s analysis of the results suggests similar referendums would probably succeed in 41 of the 50 states; the others either would be likely to end in losses for abortion-rights activists or appear too close to say either way.
The result was caused by two factors. First, many Republicans oppose rolling back abortion protections. Combined with Democrats and political independents, they are enough to block new restrictions even in very red states. In an average of the most recent four weeks’ surveys by YouGov, an online pollster, on The Economist’s behalf, 35% of Republicans said abortion should always be legal or be legal with very few restrictions, such as for late-term abortions; 50% said abortions should be legal in only special circumstances, including those to save the life of the mother; and only 15% preferred abortions to always be banned. Based on a model that combines this polling data with the demographics of people who live in Kansas, we estimated that 51% of adults there support the right to an abortion in all or most circumstances, while an additional 33% favour additional restrictions but are opposed to banning it completely.
The second factor is that Democrats and women have become increasingly concerned about abortion since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade earlier this year. That has made them more likely to vote. According to YouGov’s data, in January 2021 nearly 70% of both Democrats and Republicans believed that abortion was a “somewhat” or “very” important issue. That has now increased to more than 85% for Democrats, while just 65% of Republicans would agree. Thirty per cent of women now say they are “more enthusiastic” about voting in the mid-term elections compared with previous elections—an increase of five percentage points since April. Over the same period, there has been no increase among men. The results in Kansas show how these trends combined to produce a victory for proponents of abortion rights. They could also yield an unexpected boost for Democrats in November’s mid-term elections. ■
