OSpeaker 1: ne of the conventional wisdom in terms of Democrats running in midterms and in
presidential elections, one of the conventional wisdom says you run on the economy mostly.
Sometimes there are other issues that that have a big impact, but you mostly run on the economy.
And in general, it's believed and I believe the polling normally bears this out to be true.
Running on gun safety isn't good for Democrats in national elections, and running on abortion
isn't good for Democrats in national elections. And historically, I believe that that's been
true. And we've seen polling to that effect. And we've talked to experts who say these are not when
Democrats run on gun safety, it doesn't really motivate other Democrats to get out and vote,
and it often will motivate Republicans to come out and vote against those Democrats.
The polling this election cycle now in the aftermath of Roe v Wade being overturned
by the Supreme Court and in the aftermath of Republicans willing to do very, very little,
if anything, when it comes to gun safety. Okay. It looks like there's going to be this kind of very
small bill, but it's not really going to deal with the major issues along along gun safety.
It actually may be exactly what Democrats should run on for the midterms if the attention span of
the electorate is still going to keep those issues in the forefront of voters minds in November,
which is four and a half months from now. So let's look at the polling first and we have two sets of
polling here. First of all, we have a new CBS News poll. Americans react to the overturning
of Roe v Wade. Most disapprove, most call it a step backward. And when you look at the data
among all Americans, only 41% approve of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade
and 59% disapprove. And when you look at women specifically, it is even more skewed. Only a
third of women approve of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade and two thirds of women
disapprove. Now, this shouldn't surprise us in the sense that we've been tracking public
attitudes towards abortion since Roe v Wade. And support for abortion being legal in most cases
has increased over the last 50 years. Every time the poll has done support for Roe v Wade, support
for abortion being legal in most cases has gone up. So that's not a surprise. Also from the poll,
52% of Americans believe that overturning Roe v Wade is a step backwards, whereas only 31% believe
that overturning Roe v Wade is a step forward. 17% believe that it is neither. Without question,
the world looks at the United States overturning Roe v Wade. What we have seen I mean, look at my
country of Argentina, which was very much behind on abortion rights in the last I don't remember
it. It feels like it's been the last five years, in the last five years going in the direction of
legalizing abortion. Most countries go in the direction of legalizing the United States now
going back. Backwards. And this is what conservatives talk about when they say conserve.
They don't even mean conserve the status quo. They mean go back to the 1950s or even beyond
in certain cases. So not not a surprise there. And then what will the impact of Roe v Wade being
overturned be on women's lives? 56% of Americans believe that this will make women's lives worse,
while only 16% believe that overturning Roe v Wade will make women's lives better. And then lastly,
on the question of will they go further? 57% of Americans believe it is likely that that next the
Supreme Court will try to limit same sex marriage. And 55% of Americans believe that the Supreme
Court will next or soon try to limit access to birth control, something that I have been
talking about extensively with many of you for a long time. So that to me signals this time around
running on, they're taking our rights. They're taking abortion as a right and they want to come
for same sex marriage. I mean, Clarence Thomas wrote it in his opinion. That may actually be
a good idea, these midterms. Second issue is gun safety. And we've looked at some of these
numbers before. Americans overwhelmingly support the vast majority of gun safety regulations that
have been proposed. There's some Pew Research data which Vox summarized into a very good graphic,
which I have on this on the screen now. And let's see if I can zoom it in a little bit there.
When you ask about what about mental health restrictions on firearms, close to 90% of
Americans, the black dot here is the overall close to 90% of Americans support that. More than 80% of
Americans support TIO. 81% support background checks on every purchase. No gun purchases that
would be exempt. 79% of americans support rather oppose concealed carry without a permit. There are
states where you don't need a permit to concealed carry. You can just do it. Almost 80% of Americans
are against that. A 77% support family initiated red flag laws where a family could say, hey,
this person is not stable. They should not be able to have firearms. 70% support police initiated
red flag laws and even these provisions that have lower support still have nearly two thirds support
bans on high capacity magazines, 64%, and bans on assault style weapons, 63%.
So I believe at this point it is completely clear these are good issues for Democrats to run on this
time around. What are the counterpoints? Well, the counterpoints are Democrats haven't been
particularly strong on a lot of these issues either in terms of what they've been able to
accomplish. Now you can then say, well, but that's because of Republican obstructionism. Sure. Sure.
But is there credibility in Democrats saying we're going to take care of these issues, we're going to
get back to that issue a little bit later in the show. Another counterpoint. These issues seem very
one sided and important and relevant today to voters. But what about on November 8th? We've
got four and a half months of pumping up on right wing media. Oh, fuel prices and inflation and the
border and Ukraine and these issues that are used to attack Joe Biden, even if they have very little
to do with Joe Biden, will guns and abortion still be on the minds of voters come November 8th?
How long is the understandable outrage about Roe v Wade and gun safety going to last? And then and
then lastly, and this is what we'll get back to when we look at some viral viral interview clip
a little bit later. Are there enough voters who see Democrats as credible on these issues to say,
okay, I'm outraged about what happened, but do I believe that voting for Democrats is the way
that we're going to improve the situation? We'll talk about that a little bit later.
But in the immediate, let me know. You can find me on Twitter at David Pakman. Do you believe
that guns and abortion in this particular election cycle are good issues for Democrats to run on?
Let me know. Find me on Twitter at Pacman and we'll keep talking about it after the break.