Pro-Life Voters Make a Difference in Crucial Senate Races The Pro-Life Increment -- 2002.

Pro-lifers knew well before November 5 that the national battle for the United States Senate was also a battle between pro-life and pro-abortion forces to determine whether pro-life or pro-abortion leadership would win Senate control. But as the nature of this political contest shaped up, it became as stark a battle over abortion as one could imagine. In each of the nine key Senate races that collectively were to determine control of the Senate, a pro-life Republican faced a pro-abortion Democrat and abortion was a major campaign issue.

The pro-life candidate won in seven of the nine contests (see story, page one). Post-election polling shows that abortion played a very major role in determining how votes were cast in these pivotal contests--with results that certainly didn't please NARAL and EMILY's List.

The Zogby polling firm conducted a post-election poll of 5,408 people with a margin of error of 1.3% in the nine Senate-race states of Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.

In these states collectively 41% of the voters said the abortion issue affected their vote. Of these, 55% said they voted for the pro-life Republican U.S. Senate candidate, and only 39% said they voted for the pro-abortion Democrat.

When you do the math you see this means that 23% of the electorate in these states was influenced by the abortion issue and voted for the pro-life candidate, while only 16% was influenced by the abortion issue and voted for the pro-abortion candidate. This yields a very significant 7% pro-life increment which played a pivotal role in electing pro-life candidates.

Zogby also asked the 41% who were influenced by the abortion issue if they voted for candidates who favored abortion or opposed abortion. Of those, 61% (25% of the electorate) voted for candidates who opposed abortion, while only 31% (13% of the electorate) voted for candidates who favored abortion. This yields a 12% increment for pro-life candidates. Supporting evidence verifying this dramatic pro-life advantage came from other sources as well.

Exit polling by Fox News/ Opinion Dynamics conducted in the three states (Georgia, Minnesota, and Missouri) in which a pro-life Republican won a seat previously held by a pro-abortion Democrat confirmed the ...