Since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, there has been nearly a half-century of polling on abortion. While many are skeptical of polls generally (after all, they missed the mark in 2016 and 2020, each time underestimating Donald Trump’s performance), on certain issues there is a consistency to the results.
In 2014, the American Enterprise Institute’s Karlyn Bowman, a renowned survey research expert, analyzed the abortion data and found most respondents preferred that “the choice should be left up to the woman and her doctor.” From 1990 to 2009, the percentage choosing that option never fell below 50 percent. But the public did not support abortion-on-demand during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.
Instead, persistent majorities believed abortions should be allowed only when “a woman’s health is seriously endangered”; when “there is a strong chance of a serious defect”; or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Throughout this period, a strong majority opposed overturning Roe v. Wade, and today 61 percent disapprove of the Dobbs decision.
A follow-up AEI report completed this October finds most Americans do not align themselves with the simplistic labels of being “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” and seven-in-ten believe compromise is possible on this issue. Bill Clinton, that most adroit of politicians, neatly captured the public mood, telling voters in 1992 that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.”
For years, Republican presidents used abortion as a litmus test to nominate pro-life judges to the Supreme Court. But when those nominees came before the Senate for confirmation, they hedged. In 2017, Neil Gorsuch told senators that “a good judge will consider [Roe] as precedent of the Supreme Court.” One year later, Brett Kavanaugh noted that Roe “is an important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times.”
In 2020, Amy Coney Barrett told senators, “Roe’s core holding that women have a right to an abortion, I don’t think that would change.”
Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) believe they were misled by Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, with Collins calling the Dobbs decision “a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger and a further loss of confidence in our government.” Manchin says, “I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the rule has provided for two generations of Americans.”
The standard for winning Senate confirmation was set in 2005 when John Roberts likened the judicial process to a baseball game, telling senators that the job of the Supreme Court was “to call the balls and strikes, and not to pitch and bat.” Roberts understood the importance of making sure the Court did not forfeit its most precious asset: public acceptance of its decisions.
In the Dobbs case, Roberts warned that taking down Roe “all the way down to the studs” was fraught with danger, and he proposed upholding the Mississippi law, which banned abortion after 15 weeks. Had the Court followed his advice, it is doubtful the Democrats would have had a powerful issue heading into the final stretch of this year’s midterm elections. Now it is the Court’s legitimacy that is an issue, with 74 percent believing it is “too politicized.”
Abortion, along with voter concerns about the continuance of our democracy, are daggers pointed at the heart of the Republican Party. Thirteen states, many with Some Republican governors and state legislatures have banned all abortions — even in the cases of rape and incest. In Ohio, a 10-year-old girl who became pregnant as the result of a rape traveled to Indiana to obtain an abortion because she couldn’t get one in Ohio.
Conservative pundit Karl Rove calls the Texas ban on all abortions “extremist” and warns “it’s gonna create a real problem for Republicans in the legislature next year when they have to deal with it.” A Pew Research survey finds 62 percent agreeing that the Republican Party is “too extreme in its positions.” This Fall, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds half of all voters say the Dobbs case has made them more motivated to vote, and more than four-in-ten women aged 18 to 49 say they are more likely to cast a ballot, with 59 percent naming the Dobbs decision as their reason for doing so.
Republican candidates are facing the wrath of pro-life groups that are displeased with any attempt to walk back their positions on the issue. Arizona Republican Blake Masters, for example, has rewritten or removed half-a-dozen statements opposing abortion from his website, including his previous support for a federal personhood law to protect fetal life. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, criticizes candidates who are “taking their marching orders from bloviating campaign consultants who are telling them to run away from protecting life.”
But while Republicans are facing recriminations from their pro-life supporters, abortion is not a sure-fire winner for Democrats. James Carville warns that given Republican attacks on crime and inflation, “You’ve got to be more aggressive than just yelling abortion every other word.” High gas and grocery prices will surely cause voters to register their dissatisfaction with Democrats. But there is another incumbent party on the ballot this year: the Republican Party that controls the Supreme Court and its congressional wing that remains under the spell of Donald Trump.
These two incumbent parties, both disliked by voters, make forecasting this year’s elections very difficult. Whichever party prevails on Election Day, neither should claim a mandate. This year the election comes down to which party voters dislike the most.
John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. His latest book, co-authored with Matthew Kerbel, is “American Political Parties: Why They Formed, How They Function, and Where They’re Headed.”