Ex-Obama Campaign Manager Tells Fox News What Is The ‘Sleeper Issue’ That Will Determine This Election

Fox News anchor Dana Perino spoke with former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina on Thursday about the latest polling the Trump-Harris race and which issues appear to be top of mind for voters.

Perino began by noting that “a new survey does show a majority of Democrat, Republican, and independent women all oppose a decision to send the issue back to the states.”

Perino then introduced Messina and added, “I want to talk about so many things with you. But I did want to start with this because, I remember a couple of years ago you had said that this is going to be an issue, it will be an issue on the ballot in some of the battleground states. And in fact, it is going to be. I also noted that there was a pollster who recently said he would look to do a focus group with, independent-minded, undecided women voters, and he couldn’t find any.”

“And even though the economy is the number one issue across the board, how will the issue of abortion affect the election? What should Republicans be aware of?” she asked.

“Yeah, Dana, this is the sleeper issue of this election. And it was a sleep received the last election in the 2022 midterm elections. The Democrats performed 9% better than the polls. And when you look at why the huge move towards the Democrats from suburban women, you know, the story of my entire life has been don’t piss women off,” Messina replied, adding:

And this issue has pissed off a whole lot of women voters, in these battleground states. And now they’re going to get a chance to vote on it. And you see this in poll after poll. I totally agree with you. The economy is the most important issue. But when you go down and look at issues that are moving enthusiasm, it is this abortion issue. And it’s because across party Republicans, Democrats, independents all believe in the same thing. They want the government to stay out of their lives. And this is an issue that is just burning straight hot. And President Trump seems to be trying to run away from his position on this. And I think it’s really hard to do.

“Let me just pull up here for everybody. This from our Fox News poll last night just to show everybody the main issue is the economy, immigration, abortion way is down [the list],” Perino said showing a graphic. She added:

The economy, 38%. So we’ve established that. But to your point on what Trump has been saying, like he is trying to say like it’s fine if the states decide, let the states decide. And what the recent poll that I saw from KFF showed is that women are not okay, apparently with the majority of women are not okay with the states deciding they don’t want they want the federal government to have a blanket policy. But in addition to that, you will have these abortion referendums in the states like Arizona and Nevada. Could that be the difference for Kamala Harris if those races remain very tight with Trump?

“Oh, absolutely, Dana, because when you look at who the undecided voters are in this election, we’re down to like 5% of voters, actually, who could vote for both of these candidates. And they are almost two-thirds women voters. And the question is, is some of these voters going to actually get out and vote? And ballot initiatives have been proven to be vote turnouts on both sides, right? Both parties use this. You know, Republicans have put immigration ballots on in the past. And so it really is about enthusiasm and whether or not these voters actually get to the polls and the state referendum are going to be a big way to turnout voters to make sure they vote,” Messina concluded.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.