Gun violence reform 1, NRA 0

In the first test since the Sandy Hook massacre, the National Rifle Association became the central focus of an election and they lost in a landslide.

Tuesday’s special election in Illinois provides important lessons as the national debate over guns has taken on a new intensity in the aftermath of the recent mass shootings across the country.


Obviously, each congressional district has its own dynamics and the Democratic primary voters in a Chicagoland special election do not reflect the debate in every community around the country. But the bottom line is that a candidate who many discounted when she entered the race heralded a principled position on stopping gun violence and won.

Democrat Robin Kelly emerged from a crowded field to run away with an election that featured two popular, high profile candidates who carried “A” ratings from the NRA.

Even before the horrifying events in Sandy Hook, Kelly’s campaign was a call for common sense gun violence prevention laws. She wears her lifetime “F” rating from the NRA as a badge of honor and, like so many others in Illinois, she understands the pain of losing a friend or family member to gun violence.

Kelly received massive support from individuals and groups across the entire country, most notably from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Independence PAC and the Daily Kos community.

Bloomberg and the activists were critical in highlighting the differences between Kelly and her NRA-backed opponents. But their decision to enter the race resulted from Kelly’s credibility on the issue and her desire to make it the centerpiece of her campaign.

In December, Kelly released her pledge to fight gun violence which called for, among other items, a ban on military-style assault weapons, a ban on high-capacity magazine clips, and the elimination of the gun show loophole. All of those policies enjoy majority support from Americans, according to a recent Pew Research Center/USA Today survey.

As part of her pledge, Kelly also vowed never to accept the support of the NRA. None of her opponents signed the pledge.

But Kelly’s opponents’ associations with the NRA severely limited their growth potential. Fifty-six percent of voters told us they were ‘not at all likely’ to support a candidate for Congress with whom they agreed on a majority of the issues, but who had an “A” rating from the NRA.

In January, we discovered that only 17 percent of likely voters had a favorable impression of the NRA, while 63 percent had an unfavorable impression of the group. Negative feelings towards the NRA outweighed positive ones among practically every demographic and regional bloc. Even self-described conservatives gave the NRA bad marks.

For several weeks, we hounded our opponents to release their NRA questionnaires. We sent seven pieces of mail to likely voters establishing Kelly’s bona fides on fighting gun violence and contrasting her record with her opponents. The race began to change dramatically.

By early February, Kelly nearly doubled her vote share from four weeks earlier. She surged into first place, leaping from 15 percent of the vote to 26 percent. Among the voters in our mail universe, Kelly’s vote share was a commanding 40 percent. Independence PAC had only been on the air for less than a week at that point and their ad only mentioned former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, but Kelly’s favorability was quickly rising while Halvorson’s standing was in a free fall.

In the ensuing weeks, the debate over gun violence continued to dominate the campaign. Kelly’s message resonated with voters, leading to 52 percent of the vote in a 16-candidate field.

While the electorate was not a microcosm of the country, there is broader evidence of a shift in public opinion on gun violence laws. Last week, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 61 percent of Americans believe the laws covering the sale of firearms should be made stricter. Just two years earlier, only 52 percent felt that way.

But more important than a shift in public opinion is the potential game-changing shift in the power dynamics of campaigns. The political problem for gun violence prevention advocates has traditionally been the perception that the energy and the money was with the NRA.

But with candidates like Robin Kelly willing to stand up in the fight to end gun violence and national leaders like Mayor Bloomberg willing to even the political playing field with the NRA, the tide is finally starting to turn. In the future, anti-gun violence candidates may feel more empowered to speak their minds on the issue and the NRA’s days as an unchallenged super lobby may be coming to a close.

Jason McGrath is Vice President of GBA Strategies, a public opinion research firm that works for Democratic candidates, not-for-profit and civic organizations and Fortune 500 companies. He was the pollster for the Kelly campaign.