05-15-2024, 12:29 PM
One of the weakest links of democracy - low information voters:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/upsho...blame.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/upsho...blame.html
Nearly one in five voters in battleground states says that President Biden is responsible for ending the constitutional right to abortion, a new poll found, despite the fact that he supports abortion rights and that his opponent Donald J. Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who made it possible to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Trump supporters and voters with less education were most likely to attribute responsibility for abortion bans to Mr. Biden, but the misperception existed across demographic groups. Twelve percent of Democrats hold Mr. Biden responsible, according to New York Times/Siena College polls in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin and a Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena poll in Pennsylvania.
“I think the buck stops with him, so he had the ability to fight that, and that’s not what I’m hearing that he did,” said Terri Yonemura, 62, an abortion rights supporter in Las Vegas who said she would not vote for Mr. Trump, but is unsure about Mr. Biden, so may not vote at all.
- - -
Many voters who held Mr. Biden responsible said they simply didn’t pay close attention to politics or government affairs. For some, the confusion came from the fact that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision happened while Mr. Biden was president.
DeLana Marsh, 30, of Holly Springs, Ga., supports abortion rights and opposes a new Georgia law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy: “I don’t think a group of men should be able to decide that for us.”
But she said she was under the impression that Mr. Biden was responsible because it happened during his presidency, and she believed his age prevented him from closely tracking such events.
Other voters said Mr. Biden hadn’t done enough to stop state abortion bans. (He has criticized the Dobbs decision and enacted certain federal policies to support abortion rights, and does not have the authority to reverse state laws.)
“There should be no restrictions on abortion whatsoever,” said Ana Juarez Ramirez, 18, of Nogales, Ariz. Yet he says Mr. Biden made empty promises on many issues, including abortion.