Voters Across 33 Surveys Say Dobbs Was a Mistake and Republicans Faced Backlash for It in the Midterms
By Anika Dandekar
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, ending five decades of constitutional protections around abortion in the United States. From August 12 to December 1st, 2022 Data for Progress conducted 33 surveys of a total of 44,383 likely voters. We find, across each of these 33 surveys, a majority of voters say abortion should be legal and that the Supreme Court should have left Roe v. Wade in place. We also find that majorities of Democrats and voters in Republican-held swing districts were more motivated to vote in the 2022 midterm elections due to the Dobbs decision.
Majorities of Voters Across Demographics Believe Abortion Should Be Legal
We asked likely voters whether they think abortion should be legal or illegal under most circumstances, and we find a majority on the side of legal abortion in every single survey. On average, across the 33 surveys, 60 percent of voters say they think abortion should be legal in most circumstances, while only 35 percent say it should be illegal under most circumstances.
On average, across the 33 surveys, 86 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of Independents, and 34 percent of Republicans say they think abortion should be legal. From August to December, Republican support for legal abortion has gradually increased by about 8 percentage points.
Across the surveys, we find majorities of Black, white, and Hispanic voters consistently on the side of legal abortion as well. On average, 72 percent of Black voters, 67 percent of Hispanic voters, and 58 percent of white voters say abortion should be legal under most circumstances.
When analyzing these results by age and gender demographics, we find that a majority of voters across groups say that abortion should be legal in most circumstances; on average, across the 33 surveys, 69 percent of women under age 45, 61 percent of women over 45, 62 percent of men under 45, and 54 percent of men over 45 say abortion should be legal in most circumstances.
Majority of Voters Think Supreme Court’s Dobbs Decision Was a Mistake
We also asked voters in these surveys whether they believe the Supreme Court was right in overturning Roe, or if they believe that Roe should have been left in place and that Dobbs was a mistake. We find majorities of voters across all 33 surveys saying that the court should have left Roe in place. On average, across the surveys, 59 percent of voters say the Supreme Court should have left Roe v. Wade in place, while only 32 percent say the Supreme Court was correct in overturning it.
When looking at these survey results by U.S. regions (Midwest, Northeast, South, and West), we find majorities of voters in all regions say that Roe v. Wade should have been left in place. On average, across the 33 surveys, 60 percent of Midwestern voters, 66 percent of Northeastern voters, 53 percent of Southern voters, and 62 percent of Western voters say the court was wrong in overturning Roe with Dobbs.
Using self-reported ZIP codes, we also determined the voters who live in “swing” congressional districts. We looked at voters who live in one of 32 competitive House districts held by a Democrat incumbent before the 2022 midterm elections (known as a DCCC Frontline District) and voters who live in one of 21 competitive House districts held by a Republican incumbent or the single open seat in a competitive district before the 2022 midterm elections (known as a DCCC District in Play). Across all the surveys, majorities of voters in both types of competitive districts consistently said Roe should have been left untouched — on average, 61 percent of voters in swing districts held by a Democrat before the midterms and 62 percent of voters in swing districts that were open or held by a Republican before the midterms indicate that Dobbs was a mistake.
Dobbs Motivated Democrats and Voters in Republican-Held Swing States to Vote in Midterms
In the 27 surveys conducted before the 2022 midterm elections, we asked voters whether the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision to overturn Roe made them more or less motivated to vote in the midterms, or if the overturning had no impact on their motivation. On average, across the 27 surveys, 47 percent of voters reported feeling more motivated and 48 percent reported no impact on their motivation to vote in November due to Dobbs.
When looking at partisanship, we find that Democrats were much more likely than voters of other parties to report higher motivation to vote in the midterms due to Dobbs. On average, across the 27 surveys where the question was asked, over two-thirds of Democrats (68 percent) reported more motivation to vote due to Dobbs, while 40 percent of Independents and a third of Republicans (33 percent) said the same.
We again looked at these survey results by voters who live in swing districts. On average, across the 27 surveys leading up to the midterms, 52 percent of voters in Republican-held swing districts reported that they were more motivated to vote due to Dobbs, compared to 47 percent of voters in Democrat-held swing districts who said the same. Voters in Democrat-held and Republican-held swing districts around mid-August reported similar levels of motivation to vote due to the overturning of Roe. However, by mid-October, these motivation levels notably diverged, and voters in swing districts held by Republican incumbents reported significantly higher motivation to vote in the midterms due to the Dobbs decision, compared to voters in swing districts held by Democratic incumbents. By the final survey there was a 9 percent difference in motivation levels between the two groups.
Conclusion
A nightmarish post-Roe reality — where parents already struggling to feed their children must accommodate an additional hungry mouth, where elementary school-age victims of rape must cross state lines to afford some semblance of a normal childhood, where an expectant mother suffering a miscarriage must be brought to the brink of death before receiving healthcare — is starting to unfold before the American people. It is no surprise then that voters consider legal abortion indispensable and disapprove of the Dobbs decision. The unwavering support for keeping abortion legal holds across race, gender, age, and region. The divergence in reported motivation to vote due to Dobbs seen between voters in Republican-held and Democrat-held swing districts suggests that Republicans faced reprisals for unpopular positions on abortion in the 2022 midterms. Conservative extremism in reproductive healthcare is upending lives; Republicans have paid and will continue to pay for it politically.
Anika Dandekar (@AnikaDandekar) is a senior analyst at Data for Progress.