Record high would only support candidate sharing abortion views: Gallup

A record-high share of U.S. voters said they would only support a candidate who shares their views on abortion, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.

The survey found a record high of 32 percent of voters would only back a candidate who has the same abortion stances as they do. This is 4 percentage points higher than when the poll was taken last year and up 8 percentage points since 2020, Gallup noted.

More of those in favor of abortion rights said that they would only vote for candidates who share their views, with 40 percent saying so. By comparison, 22 percent of abortion opponents surveyed said they would only support someone who shares their views.

Forty-five percent of all voters said they consider abortion to be one of many important factors in the election, which is down from 56 percent last year and the lowest reading since 2012.

Nineteen percent also said in the new survey that abortion is not a major issue for them, which is up 5 percentage points from last year.

Additionally, the poll found that just more than half of the voters polled believe it is “very important” that future Supreme Court nominees share their views on abortion. Another 31 percent said it is “somewhat important,” 9 percent said it is “not too important” and 8 percent said it is “not important at all.”

Gallup noted that 54 percent of adults in the survey said they support abortion rights, while 41 percent said they are anti-abortion. Half of respondents said abortion should be legal in certain circumstances, 35 percent said it should be legal under any circumstances and 12 percent said it should be illegal in all circumstances.

The poll was conducted May 1-23 through interviews among 1,024 adults, including 929 registered voters. The margins of sampling error for the entire sample and for registered voters are 4 percentage points.