Study: Pro-Life Messaging Moves Women, Hispanics, Millennials to Republican Party

 If one listens to the establishment Republicans talk, they always say it is necessary to down-play social issues like abortion and “same-sex” marriage to win elections.

Conservatives disagree, pointing to the fact that Republicans have always been the Party of family values.

So who is right?

A new poll out points to the conservative position on speaking out about social issues like abortion.  The Christian Postreports:

Democratic-leaning women, Hispanics and Millennials were most likely to shift their vote to the Republican Party after listening to anti-abortion ads, according to the results of a study reported in Campaigns & Elections.

Democratic-leaning women shifted 10 percentage points away from the Democratic candidate and toward the Republican candidate after listening to the ads. Hispanics shifted 13 points, and young voters, ages 18 to 34, shifted 8 points. The only group to shift in the opposite direction, from being more likely to support the Republican candidate to more likely to support the Democratic candidate, after hearing the anti-abortion ads, were white men.

Evolving Strategies, a data and analytics firm, conducted the experiment for Texas Gubernatorial Project, an effort by Texas Right to Life PAC to defeat the Democrat Party’s 2014 Texas gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis.

There was heightened interest in abortion during that election because Davis became a nationwide celebrity-du-jour among liberals after she filibustered a 20-week abortion ban in the Texas Senate. Republican Greg Abbott won that election by 20.4 percentage points.

This is very telling, especially now that Planned Parenthood is being exposed as being a ghoulish dead baby organ trafficker.

This should also quiet the RINOs who want to silence conservatives from talking about abortion and the need to defund Planned Parenthood.

The Christian Post provides more details:

The experiment sought to determine if pro-life messaging can move voters from a pro-choice to a pro-life candidate. The randomized-controlled experiment (similar to a blind clinical drug trial) using three different pro-life radio ads (some in Spanish) did not ask respondents what they thought of the ads, but observed how the ads influenced their likelihood of voting for Abbott or Davis.

“Using abortion as a wedge issue worked spectacularly — and counterintuitively — well with some voters, a finding that confirmed by similar experiments in the lab and field which we’ve conducted in five states, and nationally across a range of elections,” Schaeffer wrote.

For the campaign’s that pay attention, Schaeffer’s research could play an important role in the 2016 elections, especially in light of the Center for Medical Progress’ undercover sting showing that Planned Parenthood adjusts its abortion procedures in order to profit from the sell of aborted baby body parts.

This could be huge for conservative candidates in the 2016 Presidential election.  The three groups most positively affected by pro-life messaging are three groups the Republicans covet to gain – women, Hispanics, and millennials – all of whom usually vote more Democrat than Republican.

 The Christian Post reaches the same conclusion:

Some Republican strategists claim that their candidates need to focus more on the economy, and less on “culture war” issues. As I pointed out before, the Republican Party’s best hope for expanding its current base and winning national elections is to embrace, not marginalize, the Christian Right. The same holds true for the pro-life movement.

Besides women, the Evolving Strategies experiment shows, a pro-life message would help Republicans among two other demographic groups where they are weak — Hispanics and Millennials.

Both of those groups are particularly important for Republicans long term. Hispanics are the fastest growing voting bloc and will be important for the key presidential swing states of Colorado, Florida and Virginia.

If these results hold in the 2016 Presidential election; and if the Republican candidate touts his pro-life stance; then it could lead to huge results come Election Day.

If just 10% more women voted Republican; if just 20% more Hispanics voted Republican; and; if just 25% more Millennials voted Republican; then the Republican Presidential candidate would win in a huge landslide.

This may be the only way the Republicans have to counter President Obama’s “open borders” policy to create millions more illegal alien voters prior to the 2016 election.