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Report: Abortion becoming more important voting issue, driven by Democrats

Researchers think that more people are considering abortion an important election issue after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two months ago.

by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech | Aug. 24, 2022

A woman wears body paint saying "my body" and a handprint over her throat, as she joins protesters following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022.
A woman wears body paint saying “my body” and a handprint over her throat, as she joins protesters following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court’s landmark abortion cases. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Story at a glance

  • A new report from the Pew Research Center shows that more Americans are considering abortion to be an important issue in this year’s midterm elections.
  • In March, 43 percent of registered voters that responded to a Pew survey considered abortion to be a “very important” issue for the upcoming Congressional elections. 
  • That number jumped to 56 percent in August.   

More voters are considering abortion to be a “very important” issue in the upcoming midterm elections, a new study from the Pew Research Center shows.  

In March, 43 percent of registered voters considered abortion to be an important issue ahead of the midterms, and now that number has jumped to 56 percent, Pew researchers found.  

The issue of abortion has increased in importance among Democratic voters since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark legislation granting women the right to a legal abortion in the United States, researchers believe.  

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Almost all of this increase in support has come from Democratic voters, the study shows, with 71 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters who took part in the study rating abortion as “very important.” 

Meanwhile, there has been almost no change in the number of Republican voters’ attitudes toward abortion.  

Pew Research Center researchers surveyed 7,647 adults, including 5,681 registered voters, during the first two weeks of August for the new report.  

Out of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who responded to the Pew Research Center’s survey, 41 percent said they considered abortion to be “very important” in the decision for the vote in this year’s Congressional election — only 1 percentage point higher than what respondents said in a survey in March.  

The midterm election will take place on Nov. 8, and all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and a third of seats in the Senate are up for grabs.  

The survey also shows that more Republican than Democratic voters have given “a lot” of thought to this November election.  

In August, 72 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning survey respondents said they believed partisan control of Congress really matters while 69 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents said the same.  

The number of Democrats saying the outcome of the midterm elections really matters have increased by 9 percentage points since March, the survey findings show.  

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