One reason is because in presidential election years, pro-life single-issue voters generally outnumber pro-choice single-issue voters. Even small strides for the pro-choice movement could have huge electoral ramifications. For example, Al Gore would have won the presidency in 2000 if merely a few hundred pro-choice George W. Bush voters in Florida had instead voted to protect women’s bodily autonomy.

It’s also fair to suggest Hillary Clinton would have prevailed in 2016 if choice had been as singularly important to pro-choice voters as anti-choice was to pro-life voters. A 2014 state-by-state Pew survey revealed that far more respondents believed abortion should be “legal in all/most cases” than “illegal in all/most cases.” Based on these results, had the election been a referendum only on pro-choice rights, Clinton would have soundly defeated Donald Trump with 368 electoral votes, carrying seemingly out-of-reach Red states like Alaska (63 percent pro-choice), Iowa (52 percent), Montana (56 percent), and Oklahoma (51 percent).

This doesn’t mean Democrats can win in every pro-choice Red state. But if a new poll showed a majority of New Yorkers were pro-life, you’d better believe the GOP would figure out a winning strategy. Frightening voters into abandoning their beliefs in exchange for an easily consumable identity has been the hallmark of modern-day conservatives’ success.