Poll: Iowa GOP Voters Strongly Pro-Life, Would Reject Pro-Abortion Candidate 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 13, 2007
Des Moines, IA (LifeNews.com) — A newly-released survey of voters in the first presidential battleground state of Iowa find that a strong majority are pro-life. A large majority of those polled also said they would reject a pro-abortion candidate — which is bad news for Rudy Giuliani, who is the only pro-abortion Republican in the primary race.
Victory Enterprises, a political consulting firm headed by veteran Iowa Republican activist Steve Grubbs, conducted the survey.
Grubbs conducted the survey last August but only recently released the results of the poll, which included surveys with 400 likely Republican caucus voters.
The poll found that 70 percent of Iowa Republicans consider themselves pro-life on the issue of abortion while just 22 percent took a pro-abortion position.
But the key for Giuliani is a question Grubbs asked concerning what voters would do when confronted with a candidate who disagrees with their position on abortion.
Asked how likely voters would support such a candidate, nearly 45 percent said they would be "very unlikely" to back a pro-abortion Republican candidate. Another 22 percent said it was "somewhat unlikely" they would support a candidate like Giuliani.
On the other side, 30 percent said the abortion issue "didn’t matter" to their vote and just over three percent were undecided or didn’t answer.
Grubbs said that figure is important because it could still propel Giuliani to victory if he combined their votes with those who have weaker pro-life convictions and could be swayed to support him.
"If I’m Giuliani’s strategist, I’m saying, there’s 39 percent that this issue doesn’t matter to," he told the Washington Times. "George Bush won the Iowa caucuses with about 40 percent eight years ago, and Bob Dole won them with about 30 percent."
The results from Grubb’s 2006 poll are consistent with those from a similar 2005 survey of 400 likely Iowa Republican caucus voters.
Then, Grubbs found a 61-11 split on those who prefer a pro-life candidate to a pro-abortion one and another 25 percent said the issue didn’t matter to their vote.
