Candidates supporting abortion rights preferred by half of voters: Poll
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Protesters rally in support of abortion in St. Paul, Minn., on July 17. Photo: Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Nearly half of U.S. voters say they would be more likely to support candidates that favor keeping abortion legal, a ABC News/Ipsos poll out Sunday indicates.
Why it matters: Democrats have hoped the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June will help galvanize voters ahead of this year's midterms.
The big picture: About 49% of voters surveyed said they would be more likely to support candidates in the midterms that favor keeping abortion "legal and available."
- About 27% said they would be more likely to support candidates that favor limiting abortion except to protect the mother's life, and 22% said the issue wouldn't matter to their vote.
- 38% of voters said they trust Democrats to do a better job handling abortion, compared to the 26% who said they trusted Republicans to do a better job.
But, but, but: Only 41% of voters surveyed said they approved of Biden's handling of abortion, compared to 58% who said they disapproved, unchanged since the same poll was conducted in June.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that while she was "staunchly pro-life ... it will be an issue in November [for Republicans] if we're not moderating ourselves" when it comes to abortion, by including exceptions in bans for instances like rape and incest.
Stacey Abrams, who is running for Georgia governor, told the same program that the abortion debate is an "essential conversation" for Democrats across the country.
- "It is cutting across demographics. It's cutting across ideology. It is cutting across the questions that so often dominate elections at this moment, because for women this is a health care conversation.
- "It is an economic conversation. It is also just a conversation about whether our citizenship is equal to men in this country, depending on which state you live in," Abrams said.
Abrams also appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, where she said her religious faith meant she was "anti-abortion" until she went to college. Abrams said she changed her position when she began to think about what the appropriate role of the government was in the issue.
- "This is health care. This is about a woman's right to control her body. This is about a woman's right to experience and determine her future. And that for me, as a matter of faith, means I don't impose those value systems on others, but more importantly, I protect her rights, I protect her humanity, and that should be my responsibility."
Methodology: This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted Aug. 5-6 by Ipsos using the Ipsos Public Affairs‘ KnowledgePanel®. The poll was conducted in English and Spanish among a nationally representative sample of 665 adults. The margin of sampling error is ±4.2 points at a 95% confidence level.
