{"id":256702,"date":"2021-11-05T08:37:18","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T13:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=256702"},"modified":"2021-11-03T23:41:59","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T04:41:59","slug":"exit-polls-pro-life-helped-youngkin-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/exit-polls-pro-life-helped-youngkin-virginia\/","title":{"rendered":"Exit polls show pro-life stance helped Glenn Youngkin win Virginia governor\u2019s race"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author and are not necessarily reflective of Live Action or Live Action News.<\/i><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Republican Glenn Youngkin scored a surprising upset victory over Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia\u2019s Gubernatorial election, prevailing by an impressive 51-48 margin. Pro-lifers should always be pleased to see a pro-life candidate win a statewide election \u2013 especially in a blue state which Joe Biden carried by over 10 percentage points in 2020.\u00a0 However, the fact that abortion played a particularly large role in the Virginia Governor\u2019s race should give pro-lifers a great deal of optimism about the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, the September enforcement of the Texas heartbeat bill which protected preborn children after six weeks gestation raised the salience of sanctity of life issues in this particular election. In fact, in a <\/span>Washington Post<\/span> editorial<\/a>, Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent called this election \u201cthe first big test of the new politics of abortion.\u201d Furthermore, in the closing weeks of the campaign McAuliffe aggressively doubled down in support of abortion. He ran at least five television ads touting his support of legal abortion and even campaigned at an abortion facility<\/a> in Virginia. (See those ads here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

However, two exit polls provide very solid evidence that McAuliffe\u2019s aggressive support of legal abortion backfired. A CNN exit poll<\/a> found that <\/span>voters who said \u201cabortion was the most important issue facing Virginia\u201d broke 60-40 in favor of Republican Glenn Youngkin.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Similarly, a Fox News exit poll<\/a> found that Youngkin enjoyed a 12 percentage point advantage among Virginia voters who considered abortion \u201cthe most important issue\u201d facing the state. This shows that Youngkin\u2019s pro-life position helped propel him to victory on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

These polls add to a body of survey research which shows that the pro-life position is politically advantageous.\u00a0<\/span>Since 2001,\u00a0Gallup\u00a0has conducted eight polls<\/a> about the<\/span> importance of\u00a0abortion\u00a0as a voting issue. In each of these eight<\/span> polls, the percentage of\u00a0pro-lifers who identify as\u00a0single-issue<\/span> voters\u00a0exceeds the percentage of\u00a0\u201cpro-choicers\u201d who do the same.<\/span>\u00a0Additionally, a new AEI publication<\/a> found that in every Presidential election from 1984 to 2000, voters who identified abortion as an issue that \u201cmattered most\u201d voted in favor of the Republican Presidential nominee by at least a 17 percentage point margin. As such, pro-lifers should move forward with confidence. Glenn Youngkin\u2019s victory in the Virginia Governor\u2019s race showed that protecting the preborn is both good policy and good politics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Michael J. New is a Research Associate at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America and is an Associate Scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_J_New<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author and are not necessarily reflective of Live Action or Live Action News. On Tuesday, Republican Glenn Youngkin scored a surprising upset victory over Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia\u2019s Gubernatorial election, prevailing by an impressive 51-48 margin. Pro-lifers should always be pleased […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":256705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15,7077,11],"tags":[10295,13933,13935,13934,796,13918,13937,913,13936,4023,82,13920],"yoast_head":"\nExit polls show pro-life stance helped Glenn Youngkin win Virginia governor\u2019s race<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The fact that abortion played a particularly large role in the Virginia Governor\u2019s race should give pro-lifers a great deal of optimism about the future.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/exit-polls-pro-life-helped-youngkin-virginia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exit polls show pro-life stance helped Glenn Youngkin win Virginia governor\u2019s race\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The fact that abortion played a particularly large role in the Virginia Governor\u2019s race should give pro-lifers a great deal of optimism about the future.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/exit-polls-pro-life-helped-youngkin-virginia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-05T13:37:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-04T04:41:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1350994738-glenn-youngkin.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"650\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael J. 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