Subject: National Journal: NH is Ground Zero for Abortion-Rights Groups
From: James Owens <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 12:02:32 -0400
List-Id: <friends.mailman.prochoiceamerica.org>

National Journal today is out with a story
<http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/media/new-hampshire-is-ground-zero.html> on
NARAL's new data-driven ad campaign against Sen. Ayotte (R-NH). The article
highlights how NARAL has used new polling
<http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/download-files/new-hampshire-ad-creative.pdf>
to learn that Sen. Ayotte's opposition to reproductive freedom is a
significant vulnerability and that it is particularly off-putting to
independents and Republicans.

Nationally, seven-in-ten Americans support legal access to abortion but
NARAL's polling shows that number is even higher in NH, where it is
supported by 78 percent of voters. NARAL's new ad campaign comes after a series
of ads
<http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/media/press-releases/2015/watch-the-freedom-ads.html>
the
group ran in 2015 calling out Sens. Ayotte, Burr (R-NC), Johnson (R-WI),
and Kirk (R-IL) for refusing to support a bill to help victims of human
trafficking unless it denied those victim's access to abortion care. Polling
<http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/download-files/trafficking-polling-memo.pdf>
conducted
by NARAL showed that a clear majority of voters (60-75%) were less likely
to vote for their Senator for holding this extreme position.

*Highlights:*

*“Now that we have the data to back it up, we’re being able to target
these messages to very specific constituencies, and that can be the
margin of victory,” she said. “No one is surprised” the message
appeals to the Democratic base, she added, “but the fact that it’s so
effective with independents and Republicans—that’s new.”  *

*As for NARAL’s next targets, Hogue said the group is researching
messages for Senate contests in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona,
and Pennsylvania—races that all feature incumbent Republican men.*

*National Journal
<https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/623279?mref=search-result>: NH is Ground
Zero for Abortion-Rights Groups*
*With more focused messaging, NARAL Pro-Choice America is targeting
Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte*
By Andrea Drusch

Abortion-rights activists have honed their message and are gearing up
to elevate their issues once again in the battle for the Senate, two
years after Democrats were skewered for their focus on a “war on women.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America last week launched its first TV buy of 2016
against Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. The ad was message-tested
among the state’s sizable independent electorate, which will likely
determine the first-term Republican’s reelection.

NARAL plans to go into a handful of states in 2016, but leaders said New
Hampshire will be the “zenith” of this cycle’s women’s-health battle and
the testing ground for a revamped message from the one Democrats
stumbled over last cycle.

“We’ve been developing this message over the course of the past three
years, and it’s much sharper than what we’ve done in the past,” NARAL
President Ilyse Hogue said in an interview Thursday with National
Journal.

Pointing to the script of the first ad, Hogue said NARAL’s polling
indicated that a majority of voters across gender and party lines
support legal access to abortion, but they are most moved on the issue
when they believe lawmakers are prioritizing restricting women’s
health over other issues, such as jobs and the economy.

In the ad, a woman speaking directly to the camera says that unlike
Ayotte, she and her husband “show up and do the jobs” for which they were
hired. Ayotte, she continues, “seems to think that her job is about
restricting abortion, limiting access to birth control, and
refusing to even consider the president’s nominee to the Supreme
Court.”

Hogue said the tone marks a distinct shift from the attack ads former
Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado was criticized for in his 2014 race
against Republican Cory Gardner. While Democrats insist their polling
in that race showed Udall would have done worse without the ads, his
campaign was panned for overplaying the abortion issue, earning him
the moniker “Mark Uterus.”

“It’s different than what we’ve done in past years,” said Hogue, who
stressed the group’s emphasis on blocking access to reproductive
health care “at the expense of other things that are critical
priorities in their voters’ minds.

“Where we are at the sweet spot is the combination of those two things,”
she said.

To quantify the time spent on these issues, NARAL pointed to 12
different votes Ayotte took on abortion, contraception access, and
defunding Planned Parenthood since she was elected in 2010.

Armed with a retooled messaging strategy, Hogue said New Hampshire, a
state where even the majority of Republican primary voters support
legal abortion, will be ground zero for the group’s new campaign.

In polling conducted by Civis Analytics for NARAL and provided to
National Journal, 78 percent of likely voters in the Granite State
said they believed abortion should be legal, even if they personally
opposed the procedure.

“The tests in New Hampshire were off the charts,” Hogue said. “Ayotte is
uniquely vulnerable on this.”

When reached for comment, Ayotte’s campaign contended that the
senator has an excellent record on women’s health, pointing to her
work on a bill to allow over-the-counter birth-control sales, as well as
funding breast-cancer screening.

Still, New Hampshire Republicans concede that the state—known for its
independent streak— presents a challenge when it comes to abortion
politics.

“I can’t think of a single major candidate getting elected to a
significant position whose argument for election was ‘I am
pro-life,’” New Hampshire-based Republican strategist Tom Rath said.
“It has been a hurdle that Republicans have to clear some way in their
primary, but it has never been the hallmark of a general-election
campaign.”

But Ayotte, Rath said, has already been tested on this issue in her 2010
Senate race and has built trust with independent voters who helped make
her the first Republican elected statewide in New Hampshire in a
decade.

Rath added that while NARAL may be able to move independents away from
Ayotte on this particular issue, “there’s plenty of other issues,
like spending, where she can pull them right back.”

Democratic strategists working on this race said voters are naturally
inclined to trust female candidates on issues of women’s health, but
polling shows they move away when they’re read information about votes
to defund Planned Parenthood or restrict access to abortion and
contraception.

NARAL isn’t the only group betting big on this issue in Ayotte’s race.
Last week, Planned Parenthood Action Fund declared that New Hampshire
would be its biggest focus of the 2016 cycle, launching a TV ad that
featured a clip of Ayotte calling for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

On the Republican side, the GOP-aligned nonprofit One Nation already
lent Ayotte cover on women’s health, running an ad in October
praising her for working across the aisle to fund breast-cancer
research.

Hogue said part of NARAL’s new campaign is aimed at setting the
conversation early, and finding the specific voters who are moved by
this message.

“Now that we have the data to back it up, we’re being able to target
these messages to very specific constituencies, and that can be the
margin of victory,” she said. “No one is surprised” the message
appeals to the Democratic base, she added, “but the fact that it’s so
effective with independents and Republicans—that’s new.”

As for NARAL’s next targets, Hogue said the group is researching
messages for Senate contests in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona,
and Pennsylvania—races that all feature incumbent Republican men.

To read the full article, click here
<https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/623279>.

-- 
James Owens
States Communications Director
NARAL Pro-Choice America
@JamesDakinOwens
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