Reply #21: no

[Lexingtonian]

Give it a couple of months of more shaking up and settling out. We'll see a lot more of the anti crowd trying to rally, and a lot more people talking and others realizing that getting a ban is very 'moral' in theory and esthetics but the opposite in practice.

During the Nineties the national split was ~46% pro-choice, 44% pro-'life', and 10% Undecideds who leaned to upholding Roe v Wade.

Things changed last summer with O'Connor starting to leave the Court. Polling went to 56% pro-choice/upholding Roe v Wade- the Undecideds of the Nineties all went over to full support. (As political reality, that is the decisive event in the whole fight.) Overturning Roe fell to 35% and there are ~9% Undecideds- these are formerly pro-ban people stepping away from that. These new Undecideds split up the middle in the way they lean on Roe.

Right now South Dakota has managed to get the pot stirred again from where it settled in September. I don't see any pro-choice people changing their minds, but there's more ferment and upheaval and rethinking on the other side. There are a lot of previously pro-choice people whose support for overturn is softening and they're struggling to find some new position.

I'll predict to you where the polling is going to be six months from now. It's 56% pro-choice, 24% pro-ban, 20% Undecideds that split up the middle in the way they lean. There simply is a ~24% hard core that wants to live in some idealized Past. But no one else really does. It's going to be basically impossible to run on the issue outside a few extremely conservative enclaves. It isn't going to be a motivator outside the deepest base constituency. It may even become a reason (among many) moderate Republicans decide to stay away from the voting booth if their politicians run too hard or extreme on it.