Abortion ranks as important issue for most Americans: poll

A large majority of Americans said abortion is an important issue for them in a new The Economist/YouGov survey.

The poll, published Wednesday, found that 77 percent of respondents said abortion rights are either very or somewhat important, while 23 percent of those surveyed said the issue is not very important or unimportant to them. 

Along political party lines, 87 percent of Democrat respondents said abortion rights is an important issue, compared with 73 percent of independent respondents and 72 percent of Republicans.

There was almost no variation by race, with 78 percent of Black respondents saying abortion rights are important, compared with 77 percent of Hispanic respondents and 76 percent of white respondents.

Younger Americans were most likely to see abortion as an important issue, with that view comprising 85 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 years, 77 percent of respondents between 30 and 44, 72 percent of respondents between 45 and 64 and 78 percent of respondents 65 years or older.

The poll comes more than a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision handed down nearly 50 years ago that protected the constitutional right to abortion.

As a result of the ruling, multiple GOP-led states either implemented or enacted their own abortion bans and restrictions after Roe was overturned. And GOP candidates for president have been peppered with questions about whether they support a federal ban.

Ohio voters rejected a ballot measure Tuesday that would have made it harder to amend the state constitution — which was partly seen as an effort to prevent a statewide vote in November on a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution. 

The Economist/YouGov poll was conducted from Aug. 5 to Aug. 8 with a total of 1,500 respondents participating in the survey. The poll’s margin of error was 2.8 percentage points.