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    NEW: Tying Together Guns and Abortion as a Winning Campaign Message

    9.30.2022

      A new article in The Washington Post dives into a recent survey Everytown Victory Fund conducted with Schoen Cooperman Research of 4,800 voters across eight battleground states (Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). 

      The survey reveals not only the strength of gun safety messaging in general, but how to link gun violence prevention and abortion rights under a frame of candidates who are putting our health and safety at risk. Combining these two issues is a highly effective messaging strategy, and results in a five to seven point increase of support for candidates who are on the side of gun safety. 

      More from The Washington Post:

      A new ad campaign from Everytown for Gun Safety is testing a way to use the issues to tell a story about GOP radicalism. The ads will run in numerous Senate races. Here’s the one hitting Herschel Walker, the GOP nominee challenging Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.)

      The ad — which will air in Atlanta markets and is backed by a $1 million buy — is an effort to connect with voters in a visceral, energizing way by linking abortion and guns around the shared theme of safety and security.

      …

      Easily available guns have led not just to horrific mass shootings but also to a continuing epidemic of daily gun deaths and a climate of fear and violence hovering over regular Americans in all kinds of situations. And the fall of Roe means that women in many states are deprived of a health-care option in a way that can endanger their health and even lives.

      “Voters are most concerned about one thing, and that’s the safety and security of their families and communities,” Charlie Kelly, senior vice president at Everytown, told us. On both issues, Kelly said, “Republican Senate candidates like Walker are basically putting people at risk.”

      The other thing that links these issues is that they both motivate the Democratic base and also underscore the GOP’s disconnect from the political mainstream.

      125

      Did you know?

      Every day, 125 people in the United States are killed with guns, twice as many are shot and wounded, and countless others are impacted by acts of gun violence.

      Everytown Research analysis of CDC, WONDER, Provisional Mortality Statistics, Multiple Cause of Death, 2019–2023; Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project nonfatal firearm injury data, 2020; and SurveyUSA, Market Research Study #26602, 2022.

      Last updated: 11.8.2024