John Sides and I wrote an op-ed for the Daily News:
Barack Obama said at Notre Dame that he wanted to “tamp down some of the anger” surrounding abortion. Can he succeed? His challenge is that abortion is not only a contentious issue but also a partisan one: It’s not just that many people feel strongly about abortion, it’s that Republicans and Democrats feel differently.
In a famous poll a few years ago, half the Americans surveyed said George W. Bush was a “uniter” while the other half called him a “divider.” A recent Pew survey finds that the stark divide among partisans has increased. Democrats and Republicans differ by an amazing 60 points in their approval of Obama-compared to differences of around 20 points when Nixon and Carter took office and about 50 points when George W. Bush took office.
Abortion has been a hot-button issue since Roe v. Wade in 1973, but it took another 20 years for it to become a partisan issue. Throughout the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, there was little difference among Democrats, Independents and Republicans in their views of abortion. In 1990, 36% of Democrats and 33% of Republicans said that “By law, a woman should always be able to obtain an abortion as a matter of personal choice,” according to data from the National Election Studies. But since 1992, the parties have diverged, and by 2004, that 3-point gap had increased to 19 points: more Democrats (44%) but fewer Republicans (25%) agreed with that statement. Political scientist Greg Adams describes this trend as an “issue evolution,” whereby the party elites become more polarized and partisans in the public follow suit.
The political impact of abortion, however, is often somewhat muted. People feel strongly about it, but it rarely determines their vote. Instead, it is part of a larger picture of political allegiance. For example, Latinos are, on average, more conservative on abortion than other ethnic groups but less likely to say that it matters in their voting, with pro-life Latinos being only 4 percentage points more likely than pro-choice Latinos to support John McCain in 2008.
Half the people surveyed at the beginning of the 2008 campaign described abortion as “extremely” or “very” important in their voting decision – but this was less than the 66% who cared this much about the environment, the 67% who felt that illegal immigration was important, the 83% who felt this way about education, and the 93% who declared the economy to be an important issue. And this survey was conducted in June, a couple of months before the stock market meltdown.
When asked what single issue was most important, only 6% of people surveyed named abortion.
The low salience of abortion offers Obama some hope: Perhaps there is less anger than pictures of pro-choice and pro-life demonstrators would lead us to believe. Another crucial fact is that most Americans don’t think like those activists. The vast majority of Americans neither favor nor oppose abortion as a matter of principle. Instead, they tend to favor it under some circumstance – for example, when the pregnant woman’s health is threatened – and oppose it under other situations such as for selecting the sex of the child. If Obama wants to find a middle ground, most Americans will be there waiting.
But presidents will always be tempted to do as little as possible. Abortion is different from issues such as the economy and war, because presidents can avoid taking responsibility for it. Most presidents make small-scale policy changes on the margin while explaining to supporters that the executive’s ability to act is constrained by his predecessors’ appointments to the Supreme Court. In this way, abortion can remain a symbolic issue without having much political effect.
To date, Obama has put abortion on the back burner. Given the other challenges he faces, it is likely to stay there.