Republican strategists are exploring a shift away from āpro-lifeā messaging on abortion after consistent Election Day losses for the GOP when reproductive rights were on the ballot.
At a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans this week, the head of a super PAC closely aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., presented poll results that suggested voters are reacting differently to commonly used terms like āpro-lifeā and āpro-choiceā in the wake of last yearās Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, said several senators who were in the room.
The polling, which NBC News has not independently reviewed, was made available to senators Wednesday by former McConnell aide Steven Law and showed that āpro-lifeā no longer resonated with voters.
āWhat intrigued me the most about the results was that āpro-choiceā and āpro-lifeā means something different now, that people see being pro-life as being against all abortions ā¦ at all levels,ā Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in an interview Thursday.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the polling made it clear to him that more specificity is needed in talking about abortion.
āMany voters think [āpro-lifeā] means youāre for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever, and āpro-choiceā now can mean any number of things. So the conversation was mostly oriented around how voters think of those labels, that theyāve shifted. So if youāre going to talk about the issue, you need to be specific,ā Hawley said Thursday.
I just was reading some environmental messaging research, and one thing that I realized is that about half of folks donāt have a large vocabulary. I guarantee that āgestationalā is too uncommon a word for mass appeal.
Iām sure. I mostly use that term for accuracy, because I donāt believe language will change minds on this issue.
The idea is not to grab the imagination of the enemy, itās to grab the imagination of the āgive me a reason to think or care about something but I still voteā folks. Whoever they are.
I donāt believe those people still exist.