A new public opinion poll highlights a key insight for winning Pro-Life victories in the 2020 election. The survey was conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PPRI), which has a pronounced anti-Life bias that leads to an underrepresentation of Pro-Life sentiment in survey results. Even though the poll suffered from overly complicated questions that likely obscured the true prevalence of Pro-Life beliefs, the results give some helpful insights.
Chief among them is the ongoing and even increasing commitment to Pro-Life values among Hispanic voters. Catholic News Service (CNS) reports on some findings comparing two surveys on abortion opinions, one from August 2019 and one from 2014. CNS indicates that the results remain similar between the two surveys but notes “researchers detected movement in many demographic groups, Catholics included.” Digging into these changes is key to ensuring Pro-Life victory in Texas.
Commenting on the findings, Natalie Jackson, director of research for PPRI, told CNS that although there was no statistically significant change in the overall results from 2014 to 2019 and Catholics polled the same as the general population, “when you look at Hispanic Catholics, you’re looking at a different picture.” Jackson added, “We pull out the Hispanic and Latino population, because they’re a distinct group. They’re divided heavily by religion and by place of birth. A healthy minority of Hispanics are evangelical, and the PRRI study looked at the attitudes of Hispanics born in the United States, Puerto Rico and Latin America separately.”
Parsing the results, Jackson explained, “The Hispanic Catholics are a good bit different from white and other nonwhite Catholics that look like the rest of the population as a whole.” CNS notes that 55% nonwhite Catholics are in favor of legal abortion (though that figure may be much lower if survey participants are asked more nuanced questions, as explained here), but among Hispanics, the majority, 52%, are strongly Pro-Life, indicating that abortion should be banned in all or most circumstances.
Another key finding is that Pro-Life views are growing stronger over time. In the survey, 16% of Hispanic Catholics indicated that they have become more Pro-Life overtime. The survey did not specify a timeframe for the transformation, but Pro-Life Hispanic voters had the largest strengthening of sentiment over time. Also, surprising to no one who has followed election results in recent years, strongly Pro-Life voters choose to vote only for candidates who share their commitment to protecting human Life at every stage.
The analysis of the PPRI surveys reveals nothing new for Pro-Life Texans. We have long known how strongly Pro-Life Hispanic communities are and how much Hispanic voters value candidates who reflect their respect for the sanctity of human Life. The results are a significant reminder of just how important connecting the strongest Pro-Life candidates with the voters they best represent will be in Texas next year.
As Texas Right to Life has previously reported, Life is on the line in 2020. The abortion mob is funneling money into Texas to try to flip the state and replace tried and true Pro-Life leaders with radical abortion extremists. Texas Right to Life PAC already has a proven strategy for exposing the anti-Life records of candidates who are too extreme for Texas. When Hispanic voters learn about an anti-Life candidate’s commitment to abortion, they are likely to reject the candidate, like abortion queen Wendy Davis, in favor of a Pro-Life candidate who shares their views on Life.
There is nothing surprising about the recent PPRI survey, but the results are an important reminder that we must mobilize the Pro-Life majority in 2020 if we are going to keep Texas Pro-Life strong.
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