Abortion is the most important voting issue

About half of registered voters in the United States say this year’s elections will have a “major impact” on access to abortion, and about 1 in 8 voters says that abortion is the most important issue driving their vote, according to a new . Abortion is a particularly motivating issue for Black women, with more than a quarter of voters in this group saying it is the most important issue to them ahead of the 2024 elections. It is also the driving issue for larger-than-average shares of Democratic women (22%), women who live in states with abortion bans (19%) and women of reproductive age, or adult women under 50 (17%). The majority of voters who named abortion as the most important issue to them say it should be legal in all or most cases. About half (48%) said they would vote for President Joe Biden if the election were held today, while 26% said they would back former President Donald Trump. One in eight isn’t a majority of voters, and it’s down from the midterms, but it is still a share that could be decisive in tight elections,” said Ashley Kirzinger, director of survey methodology and associate director of public opinion and survey research with KFF. Black women, in particular, are a key voting group that tends to vote Democratic and tends to have high turnout, she said. Abortion is still a politically polarizing issue. Overall, a little over half of adults say they would like to see the federal government pass laws to protect abortion nationwide, compared with about 1 in 5 who say they would rather see the federal government prohibit abortion, according to the KFF survey.