An out­right major­i­ty of like­ly 2022 midterm vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton State say they would be “much less like­ly” to sup­port a can­di­date for Con­gress or Leg­is­la­ture this year who sup­ports a nation­al or state abor­tion ban, the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute’s lat­est statewide poll has found.

A total of 57% of 782 respon­dents sur­veyed said they would be less like­ly to sup­port a can­di­date who favors a ban (50% much less like­ly, 7% some­what), while 22% said they would be more like­ly (17% much more like­ly, 5% somewhat).

18% said it would­n’t make a dif­fer­ence to their vote.

Only 3% were not sure.

Here’s the full text of the ques­tion we asked and the respons­es we received:

QUESTION: If a can­di­date for Con­gress or Leg­is­la­ture sup­port­ed a nation­al or state abor­tion ban, would that make you much more like­ly, some­what more like­ly, some­what less like­ly, or much less like­ly to vote for them, or would it not make a difference?

ANSWERS:

• More like­ly: 22% 
  • Much more: 17%
  • Some­what more: 5%
• Less like­ly: 57% 
  • Some­what less: 7%
  • Much less: 50%
• Would­n’t make a dif­fer­ence: 18%
• Not sure: 3%

Our sur­vey of 782 like­ly 2022 Wash­ing­ton State midterm vot­ers was in the field from Wednes­day, Octo­ber 19th through Thurs­day, Octo­ber 20th. The sur­vey was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.5% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

It uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and text mes­sage answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

More infor­ma­tion about the survey’s method­ol­o­gy is avail­able here.

This find­ing speaks to why Repub­li­can Sen­ate can­di­date Tiffany Smi­ley record­ed and aired an ad begin­ning sev­er­al weeks ago in which she said that despite being opposed to abor­tion her­self, she would not sup­port a fed­er­al abor­tion ban.

Democ­rats have retort­ed that Smi­ley is only say­ing this so she can get elect­ed — because run­ning on her actu­al beliefs would be dis­qual­i­fy­ing. And indeed, were Smi­ley to win a six year term, she could vote for a nation­wide abor­tion ban in the next Con­gress at Mitch McConnel­l’s direc­tion — and there would be no oppor­tu­ni­ty to replace her with a sen­a­tor who sup­ports repro­duc­tive rights until 2028.

Speak­ing at GOTV events with Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren this week­end, Sen­a­tor Mur­ray not­ed that she and War­ren were there when Don­ald Trump’s Supreme Court nom­i­nees showed up for their con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings in the Sen­ate, said in response to ques­tions that Roe was set­tled law, and that they respect­ed it.

All were even­tu­al­ly con­firmed to life­time terms, over their objec­tions. And once the third of them was con­firmed (Coney Bar­rett), it took less than two years for Roe to be com­plete­ly dis­man­tled. The con­se­quences have been dis­as­trous: Women and peo­ple who can become preg­nant have already suf­fered greatly.

Most of the Repub­li­can can­di­dates run­ning this year in Wash­ing­ton sup­port abor­tion bans; there are very few Repub­li­cans left who sup­port repro­duc­tive rights to any extent, and to our knowl­edge, there aren’t any pro-choice, pro-free­dom Repub­li­cans in either the state House or state Sen­ate right now.

The Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty is well aware that most vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton sup­port repro­duc­tive rights, so the par­ty has done its best to sim­ply avoid the top­ic. For exam­ple, if you search the 2020 WSRP plat­form, you won’t find the word “abor­tion” in it. It’s just not there. That’s a delib­er­ate choice.

Repub­li­can leg­isla­tive lead­ers J.T. Wilcox and John Braun have embraced this strat­e­gy. But they nev­er­the­less hold views hos­tile to repro­duc­tive rights. Wilcox’s web­site declares in bold type: “JT’s con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues are endorsed by Human Life PAC, the NRA, and the Assoc. of WA Busi­ness.” It’s telling that the anti-abor­tion Human Life PAC is the very first enti­ty that Wilcox lists as a supporter.

The Repub­li­can Par­ty in Wash­ing­ton State was not always like this.

In the 1970s, when Ref­er­en­dum 20 was on the bal­lot, pro­gres­sive Repub­li­cans like Gov­er­nor Dan Evans and Joel Pritchard cam­paigned for abor­tion to be legal, as detailed in this excel­lent his­tor­i­cal primer by Ang­ie Weiss for the UW.

Ref­er­en­dum 20 began in the Leg­is­la­ture (as all ref­er­en­da do) as Sen­ate Bill 68. Advo­cates for repro­duc­tive rights had to com­pro­mise on lan­guage to ensure there would be a major­i­ty in the Sen­ate will­ing to vote in favor of the legislation.

“The vote was thor­ough­ly bipar­ti­san, with 14 Repub­li­cans and 11 Democ­rats vot­ing in favor,” Weiss writes. “It is also note­wor­thy that most sup­port­ers in King Coun­ty, the most pop­u­lous coun­ty in the state, were Repub­li­cans, while the King Coun­ty oppo­si­tion in the Sen­ate came large­ly from Democrats.”

Younger Wash­ing­to­ni­ans might have a hard time imag­in­ing that there was once a time when Repub­li­cans pro­vid­ed most of the votes to pass repro­duc­tive rights leg­is­la­tion out of the State Sen­ate. But there was. It’s good to know your history.

The Repub­li­can Par­ty has changed since the 1960s and 1970s, and today, can­di­dates who sup­port repro­duc­tive rights are not wel­come in the par­ty, with its pro­gres­sive wing hav­ing died out. Mean­while, there are extreme­ly few con­ser­v­a­tives left in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. Can­di­dates’ posi­tions on repro­duc­tive rights — like so many issues — now almost exclu­sive­ly fol­low par­ti­san lines.

These shifts have helped fuel a polit­i­cal realign­ment which has left Repub­li­cans large­ly out of pow­er in Wash­ing­ton State for near­ly three decades.

Repub­li­cans haven’t won a guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion since 1980, haven’t won a sen­a­to­r­i­al elec­tion since 1994, and haven’t con­trolled both cham­bers of the Leg­is­la­ture since the mid-nineties. Their drought seems like­ly to con­tin­ue this year, and their stance oppos­ing repro­duc­tive rights will be part of the rea­son why.