Poll Shows Pro-Life New Hampshire Voters Back John McCain, Mitt Romney

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 5, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Poll Shows Pro-Life New Hampshire Voters Back John McCain, Mitt Romney Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 5,
2008

Concord, NH (LifeNews.com) — A new poll released on Monday from the Fox News Channel finds that pro-life voters in New Hampshire favor John McCain and Mitt Romney while pro-abortion voters strongly support McCain. The survey also found that seven percent of New Hampshire voters say abortion is the most important issue in determining their vote.

The Granite State isn’t known as a bastion of pro-life voters and previous polls found far fewer pro-life voters there than in Iowa or South Carolina.

Nevertheless, abortion tied health care and taxes as the fifth most important issue for Republican voters in the January 4-6 survey conducted by Opinion Dynamics for Fox News.

New Hampshire Republicans named the economy, the Iraq conflict and immigration as their top three.

While Fox News didn’t release a breakdown of how abortion-minded voters would vote, it did provide a comparison between voters who said they support or oppose legal abortions. However, most of the voters are making their voting decision based on other political factors.

Unlike in Iowa, where pro-life voters made up about 75 percent of the GOP and vote heavily based on it, New Hampshire Republicans are split about 50-50 on abortion.

Pro-life voters back Mitt Romney with 29 percent, McCain gets 23 percent of the pro-life vote, Huckabee has 17 percent and 12 percent are undecided — a larger percentage than those supporting Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul or Fred Thompson.

Among pro-abortion voters, McCain is the runaway favorite with 44 percent, Romney has 24 percent, and Giuliani 10 percent. The rest of the candidates came in with single digits support.

Overall, the poll showed McCain leading with a seven point margin over Romney, 34 percent to 27 percent, with Huckabee getting 11 percent, and nine percent supporting Giuliani. Paul and Thompson have five and two percent respectively.

Along the same lines, voters declaring themselves the most conservative are trending for Romney while moderates are supporting John McCain.

Another new poll out Monday by Marist College finds that nine percent of voters in the GOP primary are basing their decision on abortion issues. But the firm did not provide a breakdown of which candidates they favored.