You’re missing the point Rick. Those women who rank abortion at the top of their list of reasons to vote are already Democrats. They’re not Republicans. These women plan on voting Democratic already. They’re already included in the generic congressional ballot as voting Democratic. Women, regardless of party, 44% plan on voting Democratic, 41% Republican, the rest not sure or undecided.
The question then comes from those undecided women voters, which issue is more important to them in deciding how’ll they vote? Is it inflation or is it abortion? As of 24 may, women answer 18% inflation 11% abortion. The remaining 71% of women have other issues more important than either inflation or abortion. Again, polls are only good as far as they go. No one asked which side of the abortion issue those 11% of women who rank abortion as their most important are. You can be sure it’s not all 11% that are pro-choice, some of them are pro-life. The break down, your guess is as good as mine.
The difference between us is I think the abortion issue is already baked into the equation for the midterms. You think abortion will be a game changer. The answer lies in the future which one of us is correct. Abortion would have to be one huge game changer to overcome this:
The Democrats currently have 39 Democratic held seats in the at risk, competitive switchable column vs. 13 Republican held seats as of 26 May. Out of those 39 currently held Democratic seats, 6 are likely to switch to the GOP, then there are the 23 Democratic held seats in the pure tossup category with the remaining 10 in the lean Democratic column which they should retain although those 10 are competitive seats. Of the 13 held Republican seats, 1 seat is likely to switch to the democrats, 9 are in the pure tossup column and the remaining 3 seats in the lean Republican column which they should retain. Just counting the likely to switch seats, 6 democratic minus 1 republican equal 5. The number of net gain seats the GOP needs to take control of the house. If you split the pure tossup seats, 12 of the 23 Democratic goes to the GOP and 4 of the GOP tossups go to the Democrats, that adds another 8 seats to the 5 for a net gain of 13. This isn’t taking the generic congressional ballot into consideration which the Republicans lead, chances are the GOP will gain more than just 13, I’d make a gain of 18-20 using my matrix.
The senate is different considering only 5 states could switch hands. One Pennsylvania looks like a switch from GOP to the Democrats. The remaining 4 are pure tossups, 3 democratic held and 1 GOP held. If the Republicans can win one of the Democrats remaining 3 pure tossups and retain GOP held Wisconsin, you’re looking at another 50-50 tie.
