Voters Across Party Lines Want to End Senator Tuberville’s Blockade on Military Promotions
By Lew Blank and Jason Katz-Brown
For the past nine months, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has used an unprecedented tactic to protest the Department of Defense’s abortion policy: blocking the promotions of U.S. service members. Tuberville has prevented more than 375 senior military officers from being promoted in protest of a new Department of Defense policy that provides paid time off and reimbursement to service members who travel out of state to seek an abortion.
On Tuesday, the Senate Rules Committee took a significant step toward ending Tuberville’s blockade by temporarily allowing the Senate to approve a group of military promotions with a single vote. However, it’s unclear whether this proposal will pass the full Senate, where 60 votes are required.
In new polling, Data for Progress finds that 63% of voters — including 72% of Democrats, 59% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans — believe that promotions of U.S. service members should resume as soon as possible, regardless of the Department of Defense’s abortion policies.
These findings show that a clear majority of voters, including Independents and Republicans, agree that Tuberville’s blockade should be put to an end.
Lew Blank (@LewBlank) is a communications associate at Data for Progress.
Jason Katz-Brown (@jasonkatzbrown) is a senior advisor at Data for Progress.
Survey Methodology
From November 9 to 11, 2023, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,209 U.S. likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.