Voters in swing states for the 2024 election do not want to leave abortion policy up to the states, according to a new poll from the University of Maryland, as abortion is set to be a pivotal consideration in the first presidential race since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Significant majorities, regardless of party identification, in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin said they preferred some sort of federal law codifying abortion rights, an issue that has sharply divided Republicans and Democrats in the lead-up to November.
Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), have made states’ rights on the issue of abortion the new standard of the Republican Party, following the move to delete long-standing anti-abortion language from the GOP platform this summer.
Trump has been consistent in his messaging that conservative legal scholars, before the overturning of Roe, advocated that abortion policy be set by state governments, as are other regulations of healthcare procedures.
Since the overturning of Roe, 24 states have instituted some form of a gestational age limit on abortion, with 14 states banning elective abortions throughout pregnancy.
But concerns over discontinuity of care between states have been an asset to Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, arguing that different standards relating to abortion across states have exacerbated inequalities in women’s health.
Tapping into public opinion on a variety of abortion-related matters, researchers at the University of Maryland questioned nearly 5,000 adults on whether or not they supported criminal penalties for either the physician or the mother for abortion after fetal viability, at approximately 22 to 24 weeks gestation.
Nearly 80% of voters in all swing states, except Georgia at 73%, did not support making abortion a crime of any kind before fetal viability.
After asking about the type of law they supported, surveyors asked whether or not the respondent would prefer a federal law codifying a national standard for abortion or for each state to make its own decisions.
Large majorities in each swing state, ranging from 64% in Nevada to 73% in Wisconsin, responded that they favor a federal law on abortion, irrespective of what the standard actually was.
These majorities are particularly strong in the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which have a total of 44 Electoral College votes that are highly coveted in the race to 270 for a presidential victory.
About 71% of voters overall in Michigan, including 65% of Republicans and 78% of Democrats, said they would prefer a federal standard following the state’s bitter fight over its abortion-rights amendment.
Pennsylvania voters were slightly more split, with only 58% of Republicans and 79% of Democrats supporting federal abortion legislation, totaling 69% overall. Abortion is legal up to 24 weeks gestation in Pennsylvania, a policy that is largely uncontested by either party.
Abortion in Wisconsin is now legal up through the 20th week of pregnancy, following the bitter legal contest over the state’s 1849 abortion ban. Nearly 60% of Republicans in Wisconsin and 87% of Democrats support federal-level abortion legislation.
The swing states of Arizona and Nevada are two of the 10 states this year that have abortion rights amendments to their state constitutions on the ballot in November for a statewide referendum. Only 30% of voters in Arizona and 36% of voters in Nevada think abortion policy should be set at the state level.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Late last month, Vance said he would “absolutely commit” that Trump would not impose any federal abortion ban or gestational age limit on abortion.
“Donald Trump’s view is that we want the individual states and their individual cultures and unique political sensibilities to make these decisions because we don’t want to have a nonstop federal conflict over this issue,” Vance said on NBC’s Meet the Press.