Exit polls show a split on abortion between Republican candidates Mike Huckabee and John McCain. Wheaton College political science professor Amy Black says there seems to be a distinction between perception and reality.
Pro-life Republicans are voting for Huckabee and pro-choice Republicans are voting for McCain. On one hand, that may make sense, but when you realize that McCain has a very consistent pro-life voting record and has been supported in all his elections by the National Right to Life Committee, it begins to look a little bit stranger. But when you talk to people, the perception is that Huckabee is much stronger on the issue.
And as a scholar, she, too, is frustrated that Democratic exit polls failed to ask the same evangelical self-identification questions as the Republican exit polls.
One of the problems is, we frankly don’t know what’s going on. We do know what’s going on with evangelical Republicans; we don’t know what’s going on with evangelical Democrats. One of the disappointing things is that we can’t gauge it on both sides, even though we know that there would be important evangelical voters on both sides.
