Abstract

This work analyzes voting for president to determine the impact of abortion attitudes on candidate choice in the six elections from 1972 through 1992. First, the literature is surveyed, then the relationships between party and abortion attitudes and between abortion attitudes and candidate choice are revealed. Most important is a probit analysis that includes party preference, net candidate image, incumbent popularity, gender, and abortion attitudes. The data base is the National Election Study for each year.

Findings are consistent throughout the period: incumbent popularity, party preference, and net candidate image are statistically significant predictors in all elections; gender is never significant but attitudes on abortion are for 1972 and 1992. Is abortion finally becoming a realigning issue, not for political party but for women as an electoral bloc? To explore whether 1992 portends future changes in abortion politics, we focus on 1992 and isolate the “mobilized” voters (who did not vote in 1988 but voted in 1992), and “converted” voters (who voted one way in 1988 and another in 1992). The data show that women predominated in both subsets and, irrespective of gender, both groups held pro-choice views. A final probit analysis adding two dummy variables shows conversion, not mobilization, to be the stronger influence.