Many Americans want abortion laws left alone, according to a new survey by Axios/Survey Monkey.
The latest poll found most Americans do not want the Supreme Court to overturn its ruling on Roe v. Wade, at a rate of 71% against overturning to 23% in favor.
Perhaps more illuminating, however, is that this distribution remained true regardless of the subgroup. Over 70% of those polled in the subgroups of African American women, young people ages 18-34, suburban white women, and “never Hillary” independents were against overturning the Supreme Court decision. Even rural voters, who tend to support Trump in the largest numbers, were against overturning it, 59% to 35%.
The closest margins are seen when looking at the data by party: 45% of Republicans are in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, but still a majority of 50% would prefer to keep it as is. Meanwhile, 90% of Democrats and 78% of independents would like to see the decision remain as it stands.
The overwhelming support for keeping existing abortion laws in place is significant as the Senate prepares to vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court at the end of the month. It remains unclear whether he would vote to overturn the law.
This uncertainty may be one of the issues feeding into opposition toward Kavanaugh’s nomination, with 48% against and 44% in favor. Nevertheless, close to ⅓ of those who would prefer not to overturn Roe v. Wade still support Kavanaugh.
With such strong opinion surrounding abortion, it is bound to be a central issue in November’s midterms.