About 25,000 Iowa voters were swayed by abortion in the 1978 Senate race

Evidence

An election day survey by the Des Moines Register indicated that about twenty-five thousand Iowans voted for Jepsen because of his stand on abortion. “I personally believe that the abortion issue was the central issue,” Clark told Bruce Morton of CBS News. The senator’s campaign manager agreed. “It comes right down to those leaflets they put out,” he said. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 128

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Operatives treated the 1978 election as a test of abortion’s mobilizing power — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 128; 1978 pro-life upsets convinced Weyrich abortion could mobilize evangelical voters — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 125; Anti-abortion was chosen after other rallying issues were rejected — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 254 (+3 more)

Related

• Church-parking-lot leafleting on the final weekend flipped three 1978 Senate races (similarity 0.90)
• A 300,000-pamphlet church-lot leafleting effort flipped Iowa’s Senate race (similarity 0.86)
• 1978 pro-life upsets convinced Weyrich abortion could mobilize evangelical voters (similarity 0.84)
• Operatives treated the 1978 election as a test of abortion’s mobilizing power (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Operatives treated the 1978 election as a test of abortion’s mobilizing power #corroborates (0.90) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 128
• A 300,000-pamphlet church-lot leafleting effort flipped Iowa’s Senate race #contradicts (0.85) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 126
• 1978 pro-life upsets convinced Weyrich abortion could mobilize evangelical voters #corroborates (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 125
• Church-parking-lot leafleting on the final weekend flipped three 1978 Senate races #expands (0.80)
• Anti-abortion was chosen after other rallying issues were rejected #expands (0.75) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 254
• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #expands (0.75) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160