As the presidential election approaches, access to abortion has steadily become an important issue for American voters, especially young women.
KFF poll results Four in 10 women under the age of 30 say abortion is the most important issue on their ballot this November, according to a survey released Friday, and nearly half of women who said so in June said It has doubled.
The findings are a follow-up to KFF's Women Voter Survey conducted in June. KFF conducted an online and telephone survey of 1,383 registered women over a two-week period in late May and early June. At the time, Biden was still the Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
Biden abruptly ended his re-election campaign in July following his disastrous defeat to former President Trump, the Republican candidate, in the presidential debate in June. After withdrawing, Biden endorsed Vice President Harris.
In September, KFF conducted a poll of nearly half of the same registered female voters to gauge public opinion after Harris accepted the Democratic nomination.
Over the past three months, access to abortion has surpassed inflation as the most important issue in this election among young female voters, according to KFF polling results.
According to the September results, women's overall desire to vote appears to have increased since Harris became the Democratic presidential candidate. Compared to past presidential elections, the percentage of women who said they were more likely to vote this November increased from 45% in June to 64% in September.
This is especially true for women who are registered as Democrats. Thirty-six percent of Democratic women voters in the June KFF poll said they were more motivated to vote in this presidential election than in past presidential elections. This number jumped to 75% in September.
But registered Republican women voters are less satisfied with the president's choices than they were in June, and are only slightly more motivated to vote in November.
In June, 53% of female Republican voters polled by KFF said they were more likely to vote this November than in any other presidential election. In September, 61% of Republican women said the same.
More women now than in the summer believe the outcome of this presidential election will have a major impact on access to abortion and reproductive health.
In June, 54% of women said they believed the presidential election would have a major impact on abortion access and reproductive health care. By September, 65% of women said they believed this.
Democratic women who say abortion is the most important issue to them are now more likely to believe this election will make real changes to the landscape of abortion access and reproductive health care in the United States.
Overall, 26% of Democratic women say abortion is the most important voting issue to them.
And now, 79% of these women say this presidential election is “in a big way” important for access to abortion, up from 66% in June.
Meanwhile, Republican women don't think this election will make much of a difference when it comes to abortion, according to KFF.
The KFF survey was conducted online and by phone between September 12 and October 1 among 649 women who are registered to vote in the United States and who participated in the June survey. A supplemental sample of 29 black women registered voters was also added to ensure an adequate sample. Size and representation of major voting groups. The survey has a 5 percentage point margin of error.
