Pro-life nation? Not so fast
From the Washington Monthly:
A TALE OF TWO POLLS.... In mid-May, Gallup released a poll that found 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" and 42% "pro-choice." It was the first time a majority of U.S. adults had identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking the question. Last week, however, Gallup released a follow-up poll showing the pro-life lead evaporating, dropping from nine points to one, 47% to 46%.What prompted the shift? It's hard to say with certainty, but as we talked about on Thursday, it's likely the May poll was just an outlier.
Ed Kilgore had a good item on this on Friday
Even aside from the essential emptiness of self-descriptions like "pro-choice" and "pro-life, those of us who thought the May poll was an outlier seem to have been right. But I bet you're not going to hear nearly as much about it....Similarly, Scott Lemieux predicted we'll hear "a lot less" about the August results than "we did about the May outlier."
Did this prove to be true? You bet it did.
For what it is worth, in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 60 percent of respondents favored upholding Roe v. Wade (scroll to Question 13).
