As the presidential election inches closer, abortion access is steadily becoming a more important issue for American voters, especially among young women.
KFF poll findings released Friday show that 4 in 10 women younger than 30 say abortion is the most important issue behind their vote this November, almost twice as many who said so in June.
The findings are from a follow-up to KFF’s “Survey of Women Voters” conducted in June. KFF polled 1,383 registered women via online and telephone surveys for two weeks at the end of May and the beginning of June. At that time, Biden was still the Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
In July, Biden abruptly ended his reelection campaign after a poor June presidential debate against the Republican nominee, former President Trump. After withdrawing, Biden endorsed Vice President Harris.
KFF polled nearly half of the same registered female voters in September to gauge public opinion after Harris accepted the Democratic nomination.
In those three months, abortion access surpassed inflation as the most important issue this election among young female voters, according to KFF poll findings.
Overall, women appear to be more motivated to vote now that Harris is the Democratic nominee for president, according to the September results. The share of women who say they are motivated to vote this November compared to past presidential elections increased from 45 percent in June to 64 percent in September.
This is particularly true for women who are registered Democrats — 36 percent of Democratic female voters who took part in the KFF poll in June said they were more motivated to vote in this presidential election than in past ones. That number skyrocketed to 75 percent in September.
But registered Republican female voters are less satisfied with their presidential options than they were in June, and they are only slightly more motivated to vote this November.
In June, 53 percent of Republican female voters who took part in the KFF poll said they were more motivated to vote this November than in other presidential elections. In September, 61 percent of Republican women said the same.
More women now than in the summer believe the results of this presidential election will have big consequences for abortion access and reproductive health.
In June, 54 percent of women said they think this presidential election will have a major impact on abortion access and reproductive health care. By September, 65 percent 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 really change the state of abortion access and reproductive health care in the U.S.
Twenty-six percent of all Democratic women say abortion is the most important voting issue for them.
And 79 percent of these women now say this presidential election matters “in a major way” for abortion access, up from 66 percent in June.
Republican women on the other hand don’t believe this election will change much when it comes to abortion, according to KFF.
The KFF survey was conducted Sept. 12 to Oct. 1 online and by phone among 649 women who are registered to vote in the U.S. and took part in its June survey, along with a supplemental sample of 29 Black female registered voters to ensure adequate sample size and representatives of a key voting group. The margin of error for the survey is 5 percentage points.
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