Topline
Former President Donald Trump has said he believes abortion should be left up to the states, rejecting calls on the right for him to endorse a stricter ban in an effort not to alienate the majority of Americans who support abortion rights—but a new poll shows that even Trump’s more neutral position is still unpopular with women across the political spectrum.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Bojangles Coliseum on July 24 in … [+]
Key Facts
Trump rejected calls from anti-abortion rights advocates urging him to endorse a national abortion ban, saying ahead of the election that he instead supports just leaving the issue up to states.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Wednesday found 74% of women of reproductive age oppose leaving abortion up to the states.
That’s in line with the 75% of women who want abortion to be legal in all or most cases.
While a 53% majority of Republican women don’t support abortion being legal, even they oppose leaving the issue up to states, with 53% of GOP women ages 18-49 also disagreeing with Trump’s position.
Democrats and Independents are even more opposed to Trump’s position, with 86% of Democratic women and 73% of Independent women saying they don’t believe abortion should be left up to the states.
Approximately 20 states currently have some form of partial or total abortion ban in place, while others have enacted bans that have been blocked by the courts.
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What To Watch For
How abortion will impact the November election. Trump downplayed the importance of abortion in the election at an August press conference, saying, “I think that abortion has become much less of an issue.” “I think the abortion issue has been taken down many notches. I don’t think it’s—I don’t think it’s a big factor anymore, really,” the ex-president claimed. Other recent polling suggests voters disagree with his view, with Gallup reporting in May that a record share of voters (32%) say they’ll only support candidates who share their abortion views. At least eight states will also have ballot measures that directly concern abortion rights.
What We Don’t Know
While Trump has publicly advocated for leaving abortion up to the states, many abortion rights advocates believe it’s still possible he could take efforts to restrict abortion if elected. A future Trump White House could effectively ban abortion even without passing a national abortion ban in Congress, by taking steps like rescinding the federal approval of abortion drug mifepristone or enforcing a long-dormant law that bans the mailing of any abortion-related materials. In response to a question at his press conference about whether he could restrict mifepristone if elected, Trump responded, “You could do things that …. would supplement—absolutely—those things are pretty open and humane” and said “there are many things on a humane basis that you can do outside of that.” His campaign has since said Trump couldn’t properly hear the question and that the ex-president still believes the issue should be left up to states.
Tangent
The KFF poll was conducted between May 13 and June 18 among 3,901 women ages 18-49. That’s after Trump said in April he wants abortion to be left to the states.
Key Background
The Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022 set off a wave of state-level bans and made reproductive rights a hot-button election issue. KFF’s poll is in line with numerous other polls that show Americans are broadly in favor of abortion rights, and while Republicans have enacted abortion bans in office, they’ve downplayed the issue on the campaign trail. Numerous GOP candidates have toned down their abortion views or removed them from websites ahead of elections over the past two years, and abortion rights has consistently proved to be a winning electoral issue, with every ballot measure on abortion that’s come out since the Supreme Court’s ruling breaking in favor of abortion rights. Trump’s views on abortion have repeatedly changed, and the ex-president’s statement in favor of leaving the issue up to states comes after he previously suggested he could back a national 15-week ban.
