Those who see Roe’s fall as loss less likely to vote than those who don’t: poll

Those who see the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a loss of rights for women are less likely to vote than those who don’t, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll released Friday.

Sixty-five percent of respondents in the poll said that the overturn of Roe was a “major loss of women’s rights,” compared to 35 percent who do not believe it was a loss.

But only 52 percent of those who said it was a loss for women’s rights said they were likely to vote in the midterms, compared to 70 percent of people who said it was not a major loss.

Only one-third of women under 40 say they are certain that they will vote, despite being one of the demographics most concerned about abortion access.

The numbers are a blow to Democrats, who see abortion as a winning issue and a way to galvanize their base during an otherwise difficult election year. Democratic candidates at all levels and the groups that represent them have spent the last months rolling out ads hammering their opponents over abortion access.

But others have questioned whether the message is falling flat.

Still, previous polls have found that the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe, did galvanize Democrats.

A CBS News poll last month found half of Democratic respondents said the decision made them more likely to vote in November, compared to only 20 percent of Republicans.

Around the same time, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said that there is “an energy and an activism” among progressives post-Roe that he has not seen since former President Trump’s election in 2016.

The Post-Schar School poll found that about a third of respondents say that abortion is one of the “single most important” issues they will consider when casting their vote in the November midterms, a sizeable shift from a 2019 Post-ABC poll where only 14 percent said abortion was a top factor in their presidential vote.

But 39 percent of adults surveyed say that they do not trust either Democrats or Republicans to handle the abortion issue, while 35 percent say they trust Democrats more than Republicans on abortion and 26 percent say the opposite.

Polling from Morning Consult and Politico days after the Dobbs decision revealed that more than 60 percent of Americans thought it was somewhat important or very important for candidates running in the midterm elections to support abortion access.

Seventy-four percent of Republicans say they will definitely vote in November, compared to 62 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of independents.

Twenty-eight percent of independents say that abortion is one of the most important issues influencing their midterm votes, and those who classify themselves as independents say they trust Democrats more than Republicans by 12 percentage points.

Americans who say that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases are 11 points more likely to express certainty that they will vote in November compared to Americans who say abortion should be legal.

The Post-Schar School poll surveyed 1,026 U.S. adults from July 22 to 24 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.