Jack Kurtz/ZUMA Press/Newscom
Politico is highlighting a new report released yesterday by the American Principles Project (APP) that shows a majority of Americans support social conservatism.
APP argues that a unified social and economic conservative platform is a winning electoral strategy. In the 2012 election, for example, in all four states that had marriage on the ballot, traditional marriage vastly outperformed the Republican presidential ticket.
Likewise, women, independents, youth, and Latinos all favor moving policy in a pro-life direction. As the report notes:
59 percent of men and 57 percent of women say that they believe that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
Meanwhile, young voters are the most pro-life generation ever. The May 2013 Gallup poll showed that Millennials (ages 18-34), support making abortion illegal in all or most cases by a margin of 57 percent to 41 percent.… Only 29 percent of Millennials support the Democratic Party’s position on abortion.
Meanwhile, the report suggests that conservatives need to do more to explain how our economic policies will help all Americans, particularly those in lower- and middle-class circumstances.
More importantly, though, advancing such a governing agenda is the principled thing for Americans to do.
As conservatives, we want all citizens to flourish, and for that reason we stand for life, religious liberty, marriage, economic freedom, low taxes, markets in health care, school choice—just to name a few.
At the end of the day, economic and social conservatism spring forth from the same source and are grounded in the same principles that informed our Founding—principles that the conservative movement exists to protect.
