Partisan gap on abortion ‘wider than ever’: Analysis

The divide between Democrats and Republicans over abortion is at its sharpest in years, according to new polling on the issue that is expected to play a big role in the 2024 presidential race.

There is a 50-point difference between the two main parties, a number “bigger than ever before”, according to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

More than eight in ten Democrats think abortion should be legal in most or all cases — while only about a third of Republicans say the same.

“We’re seeing the biggest partisan gap we’ve ever seen when it comes to Americans’ attitudes about the legality of abortion,” PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman told The Hill.

Notably, Republican views on the procedure have remained roughly the same over the past decade or so, according to trend data, while approval of the legality of abortion among Democrats and independents has been rising in recent years.

“In general, Americans’ attitudes toward abortion have become more supportive of the legality of abortion over time, but Republicans have not changed much. But the rest of Americans do,” Deckman said.

This stark partisan divide poses problems for both parties as abortion is pushed further into the spotlight in 2024.

A strict six-week ban went into effect Wednesday in Florida, and the Arizona state Senate voted the same day to repeal a Civil War-era ban in the state. Organizers are also working in several states to get measures on the ballot this fall that would enshrine reproductive rights in state constitutions.

President Biden’s re-election bid has attacked former President Trump over abortion, blaming him for the downfall of Roe v. Wade. Wade and subsequent statewide restrictions. Trump, in a recent interview with Time magazine, suggested that states with restrictive abortion bans could monitor women’s pregnancies.

At the same time, the investigation found that Republicans, while generally less supportive of abortion rights than Democrats, do not express widespread support for an outright ban on the procedure.

Just 15 percent of Republicans in the poll said abortion should be illegal in all cases, down from about 25 percent who said the same in 2020. Just three percent of Democrats and seven percent of independents also think the procedure should be prohibited.

A slight gender divide is also emerging, according to the new research. Gender has not played a large role in determining support for abortion access over the past decade, Deckman said, but the PRRI found a four-point divide between men and women in the most recent numbers.

Sixty-two percent of men surveyed said abortion should be legal in most cases, compared to 66 percent of women who said the same.

Republican women, in particular, are now more likely than men in their same party to say abortion should be legal – between 39% and 34% among Republican men – although there is no such gender disparity among Democrats.

Broadly speaking, the salience of abortion as a way to evaluate candidates is more prevalent among Democrats who support abortion rights than among Republicans who oppose it, Deckman said, “and this is a shift from when Roe was still the law of the land.”

Half of Democrats who think abortion should be legal in all or most cases say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views — double the 25 percent who said the same in 2018.

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Among those who think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, 44 percent of Republicans say they would only vote for a candidate with shared views, compared with 34 percent in 2018.

“This shows that the role of abortion is important to the bases of both parties,” Deckman said. “This is really livening up their electoral calculus.”

The survey was conducted between March 9 and December 7 last year by PRRI among 22,465 adults living in all 50 states. The national survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 0.82 percentage points.