Democrats Aren't In Lockstep Over Abortion - That's Why They're Fighting [View all]

[PoliticAverse]

For Democrats with eyes fixed on the midterms, the months since the 2016 election have been filled with soul-searching about the most promising paths to victory in 2018. This week, Rep. Ben Ray Luján, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, made some news when he said in an interview with The Hill that the organization wouldn’t take a candidate’s stance on abortion into account when allocating campaign funds. The move has angered some on the left and renewed questions about what ideological deviations from Democratic orthodoxy the party should tolerate as it tries to win back voters who swung for President Trump in last year’s election.

Activists and some prominent Democrats took umbrage with the DCCC’s stance when news of it surfaced this week. Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, wrote in a tweet, “Women deserve access to safe, legal abortion no matter if their state is red or blue — it’s a constitutional right that can’t be traded away”; and ThinkProgress talked to abortion rights activists who felt undermined by the move. Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, who headed the organization during its 2006 “50 state strategy” push to be competitive, even in conservative states, tweeted out the Hill article and said, “I’m afraid I’ll be with holding support for the DCCC if this is true.”

...

The debate isn’t just lip service about how to attract Trump voters — it’s indicative of a split that already exists within the party. A look at the numbers shows Democrats don’t all feel the same about abortion rights. In 2017, polarization doesn’t just happen across party lines, but within parties themselves.

In 1995, about 66 percent of the overall Democratic electorate believed that abortion should be legal in most or all cases.1 Since then, Democrats overall have shifted towards greater comfort with abortion. In 2017, 75 percent said they think it should be legal in most or all cases, according to a Pew Research Center poll.

Read the rest at: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-arent-in-lockstep-over-abortion-thats-why-theyre-fighting/