FIRST ON FOX: A new study commissioned by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America found that messages highlighting North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate and former Gov. Roy Cooper’s abortion record shifted support, according to the study, toward Republican candidate Michael Whatley among voters in the state, with a message focused on federal abortion legislation producing the largest movement.
The group said it has reached more than 770,000 homes across North Carolina as it deploys a new voter-contact strategy targeting what is expected to be one of the nation’s most competitive Senate races as Republicans attempt to hold onto their majority in the Upper Chamber and fill the seat currently held by retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
Canvassers are targeting persuadable and low-turnout voters with messages focused on abortion and Cooper’s record on the issue, including his support for federal abortion legislation that the group says could override state limits and his actions as governor to veto state-level restrictions.
Cooper vetoed North Carolina's 2023 law banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, arguing it would harm women and families. The Republican-controlled General Assembly later overrode his veto, allowing the law to take effect.
"When it comes to the life issue, the issue that works best in North Carolina for the Senate race is that Gov. Cooper vetoed the 12 week limit, which is wildly popular in North Carolina and across the country, to stop abortion at the first trimester. He vetoed it and then his veto was overridden. It was a very unpopular move that really moves voters," SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser told Fox News Digital.
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"The other is that when he vetoed a bill that would give appropriate health care to a baby who was born alive after an attempted abortion. So those issues contrasted with Michael Whatley helped move voters in the direction of Whatley," she added.
The study analyzed which messages were the most effective at shifting opinion and looked to predict the impacts for voters, allowing the group to identify the people most likely to switch their vote from Democrat to Republican when exposed to one of their pro-life messages.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America commissioned Evolving Strategies to conduct a randomized-controlled trial and test the effectiveness of four different abortion messages about the positions Senate candidates in North Carolina hold on abortion. Evolving Strategies recruited an online panel of 2,607 confirmed registered voters in the state using a technique that allowed them to match respondents to their voter file and consumer data.
The study measured respondents’ stated candidate and policy support after they read the messages, while its estimates for the most persuadable voters were based on predictive modeling.
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"Our one goal when we are finding our targeted voters in any state is to find our best voters. They will end up being Democrats, they'll end up being Republicans, they'll end up being Independents. We don't start with party profile. We don't even start with where you live or what your religious affiliation is. Where we start is how your vote will be moved. So we use consumer data to create a profile of our best voter and we score those voters," Dannenfelser said.
"What we're looking for is our best voters, whether they're inclined to vote or not, and then making sure that we communicate them with them at their doors through digital communications and every other form of communication that they receive," she continued.
Respondents were randomly assigned one of four messages — "Fed" message, "Record" message, "Soft Positive" message and "Hard Positive" message — or the control condition where they read a placebo message.
The "Fed" messages criticized Cooper's support for federal legislation that the organization argued could override states' ability to make abortion laws, "Record" messages went after his abortion record during his time as governor in an effort to portray him as an extremist, and "Soft Positive" and "Hard Positive" messages each highlight Whatley's pro-life positions.
All messages were at least somewhat effective, shifting the Republican vote margin a net +1.7 to nearly +5 points, according to the study.
The two attack messages against Cooper performed best, with +4.9 points for the "Fed" message and +3.2 points for the "Record" message. The "Hard Positive" message performed substantially better at +3.9 points than the "Soft Positive" message at +1.7 points, the study found.
Among the voters identified as the best persuasion targets, the study estimated the impact could be much larger, moving the Republican vote margin a net +12 points or more.
"We are finding that these messages really resonate. We're finding that voters really feel left behind by the Democratic Party, either ones that were leaning Democrat or were thinking about Cooper. We're finding that it really resonates and that it still is a top performing issue in North Carolina and makes a big difference," Dannenfelser said.