WASHINGTON — Abortion played a role in how a majority of voters in competitive congressional districts cast their ballots in last week’s midterm elections, according to post-election polling released Monday by the national abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All.
The survey, conducted by Impact Research, found that 53% of battleground voters said abortion factored into their vote, including 61% of women without college degrees, the group said.
Reproductive Freedom for All, formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, says it has more than 4.5 million members. The group said the results give Congress a mandate to pass protections for abortion access.
“The data is clear: Abortion played a role in how voters cast their ballots, and voters saw Republicans as extremists on the issue,” Mini Timmaraju, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
According to the polling, 59% of battleground voters support Congress passing a law to strengthen protections for access to reproductive health care, including abortion, while 35% oppose it. Among independents, support was 61% to 32%. More than 4 in 10 voters said such a law should be a very or extremely high priority for Congress, the group said.
The survey also found that 54% of voters viewed Republicans as holding the more extreme position on abortion, compared with 38% who said the same of Democrats. Forty-eight percent of voters, and 53% of independents, said they would be less likely to back a Republican candidate who supports a national abortion ban, according to the findings.
The group highlighted Maine’s U.S. Senate race, in which Sen.-elect Troy Jackson defeated Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Among Maine voters who heard about the candidates’ abortion positions, Jackson led Collins 55% to 45%, the polling memo said. Forty-seven percent of Maine voters said Collins held different views on abortion than they did, while 29% said she shared their views.
Nearly 6 in 10 battleground voters agreed that having a child is the single biggest economic decision most people make in their lifetimes, the group said, framing reproductive rights as a cost-of-living issue.
“Voters understand reproductive freedom is an affordability issue—and Congress now has a mandate to act boldly and protect abortion access,” Timmaraju said.
According to a memo from Impact Research, the live phone and text-to-web survey of 1,000 general election voters in battleground congressional districts was conducted Oct. 31 to Nov. 4. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the full sample.
This report is based on information from Reproductive Freedom for All.
Source: Reproductive Freedom for All
Leave a Reply