64% of Americans Say Abortion Should Be Legal in Most or All Cases, with 50-Point Gap Between Republicans and Democrats

WASHINGTON (May 2, 2024) — Today, PRRI is releasing a new survey examining Americans’ attitudes toward the legality of abortion, views on abortion pills, and how much abortion matters to voters, two years after the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) reversing the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Based on interviews with more than 22,000 adults as part of PRRI’s 2023 American Values Atlas, this national survey measures Americans’ views on abortion legality across all 50 states and includes new analysis of the intersection between Christian nationalist views and abortion legality for each state.

According to the survey, more than six in ten Americans (64%) say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. The share of Americans who say abortion should be illegal in all cases has declined since 2010, from 15% to just 9% of Americans in 2023.

“Our new survey shows that the partisan gap among Americans with respect to abortion is larger than ever,” said Melissa Deckman, Ph.D., CEO of PRRI. “Yet, we continue to find that very few Americans support making abortion illegal in all cases, regardless of party, religion, or whether they reside in a blue, red, or battleground state.”

Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided on abortion, with a 50-point gap between them.

More than eight in ten Democrats (86%) say abortion should be legal in most or all cases compared with about one-third of Republicans (36%) who say the same. Just 15% of Republicans believe abortion should be illegal in all cases. More than two-thirds of independents (67%) also support abortion’s legality in most or all cases.

While support for abortion legality among Republicans has largely stayed the same since 2010, support for abortion legality has increased among Democrats by 15 points, with the sharpest increases coming in the last few years. Support for abortion legality has also increased among independents, with 67% indicating that abortion should be legal in all or more cases in 2023 compared with 54% in 2010.

Most people of faith support abortion legality.

Majorities of Americans across most religious traditions say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, including Unitarian Universalists (93%), Jewish Americans (81%), Buddhists (79%), other Catholics of color (73%), Black Protestants (71%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (68%), white Catholics (62%), Muslims (60%), Hispanic Catholics (57%), and other Protestants of color (52%).

The only major religious groups in which a majority do not support abortion legality in most or all cases are white evangelical Protestants (27%), Latter-day Saints (30%), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (25%); 87% of religiously unaffiliated Americans say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

A slight gender gap has emerged among Americans with respect to abortion rights, a change from earlier polling.

While in 2010, there was no discernible gender gap with respect to abortion, women have become slightly more supportive of abortion legality (66%) than men today (62%). While no such gap exists between Democratic women (86%) and Democratic men (86%), Republican women (39%) are more likely than Republican men (34%) to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, and independent women are more supportive of abortion legality (69%) than independent men (65%).

Turning to gender gaps within the parties by age, young Democratic women, aged 18-29, support abortion’s legality in most or all cases at higher rates (92%) than other Americans.  By contrast, young Republican men, aged 18-29, stand out among other Americans as holding the least amount of support for abortion legality (29%) in most or all cases.

The majority of residents in most states, including red states, support the legality of abortion.

A majority of residents in most states say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. There are five states — North and South Dakota (both 47%), Arkansas (46%), and Idaho and Utah (both 45%) — where a minority of residents support abortion legality. In no state do more than 16% of residents believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases.

Majorities of residents in blue states (70%), battleground states (64%), and even red states (57%) support legal abortion.  Nearly two-thirds (64%) of residents in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases. In these states, majorities of most demographic and religious groups say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Moreover, two-thirds of women (67%) and more than six in ten men (62%) in battleground states say abortion should be legal.

Over a third of Americans prioritize abortion as a voting issue; Democrats are now more than twice as likely than in 2018 to say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion.

When it comes to voting, over one-third of Americans (36%) say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, compared with 46% who say they consider a candidate’s position on abortion as just one of many important factors and 15% who do not see abortion as a major issue. In 2018, when the question was first asked, just 21% of Americans said they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, while nearly three in ten (28%) said they don’t see abortion as a major issue.

In 2018, prior to the Dobbs decision, about one in four of both Democrats (23%) and Republicans (25%) said they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion. Today, Democrats (47%) are more likely than Republicans (34%) to say that they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion.  The salience of abortion as a voting issue has also increased 12 percentage points for independents, from 18% in 2018 to 30% in 2023.

Abortion also matters more to women voters. Women in battleground states are 9 percentage points more likely than men (41% vs. 32%) to say that they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, similar to those in blue states (41% vs. 33%), and in red states (39% vs. 32%). In the battleground states, half of Democratic women (50%) say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, compared with 38% of Republican women in battleground states.

The majority of Americans oppose restricting access to abortion pills, but opposition has declined in last year.

Over two-thirds of Americans oppose laws that make it illegal to use or receive through the mail FDA-approved drugs for medical abortion (68%), often called abortion pills, while about three in ten favor these laws (29%). Opposition to such restrictions has declined from 72% in 2022 when the question was first asked.

Democrats (79%) and independents (71%) are significantly more likely than Republicans (54%) to oppose laws that make it illegal to use or receive abortion pills through the mail.

Majorities across all religious groups oppose laws that make it illegal to access abortion pills by mail, but Latter-day Saints (53%) and white evangelical Protestants (51%) are the least likely to do so.

Christian nationalism Adherents are the most stringently opposed to abortion legality compared with Christian nationalism Rejecters and Skeptics

PRRI’s Christian Nationalism Scale classifies Americans into four categories based on their responses to five statements about the perceived relationship between Christianity, American identity, and the U.S. government. Those Americans who strongly disagree with the core tenets of Christian nationalism, who PRRI defines as Christian nationalism Rejecters, are nearly unanimous (93%) in their support for the legality of abortion in most or all cases, as do two-thirds of Christian nationalism Skeptics (67%). In comparison, 40% of Christian nationalism Sympathizers and only one-quarter of Christian nationalism Adherents (25%) say the same. Across all 50 states, support for Christian nationalism is negatively correlated with support for abortion legality.

Methodology

The survey was designed and conducted by PRRI among a random representative sample of 22,465 adults (age 18 and up) living in all 50 states in the United States. Among those, 20,799 are part of Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel and an additional 1,666 were recruited by Ipsos using opt-in survey panels to increase the sample sizes in smaller states. Interviews were conducted online between March 9 and December 7, 2023. The margin of error for the national survey is +/- 0.82 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence, including the design effect for the survey of 1.56. The survey was made possible through the generous support of Michelle Mercer and Bruce Golden.

About PRRI 

PRRI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and politics.

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