Abortion Attitudes and Polarization in the American Electorate

• In Event: Abortion Politics after Dobbs

Abstract

About two-thirds of Americans support legal abortion in many or all circumstances, and this group finds itself a frustrated majority following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Previous scholarship argues intense minorities can secure favorable policy outcomes when facing off against a more diffuse and less motivated majority, but the role preference intensity plays in abortion politics specifically is poorly understood. We develop and validate a measure of preference intensity using data from the American National Election Studies (2008-2020). We find Americans with high preference intensities hold more extreme views on abortion, report more intense emotional reactions to proposed policy change, and participate in politics at higher rates. We extend our analysis into the post-Dobbs era using data from the 2022 midterm elections, and the results suggest abortion is poised to play a key role in voter mobilization, particularly among Democrats, in 2024 and beyond.

Research on frustrated majorities has not directly evaluated the connection between abortion attitudes and policy. Because we find ourselves at an inflection point in American abortion politics, there’s a critical need to better understand public opinion in this area. Preference intensity has been somewhat overlooked in existing scholarship on abortion attitudes, in part because it’s difficult to measure. We measure abortion preference intensity using the open-ended party likes and dislikes questions from the ANES surveys administered between 2008 and 2020. We use this approach to identify a group of abortion-focused Americans (those with high preference intensity when it comes to abortion) and compare their attitudes and political and demographic profiles to Americans with less intense preferences.

Given the role that abortion has played in partisan politics in the past, we are particularly interested in connecting abortion preference intensity to common indicators of polarization - attitude extremity, affect, and political engagement. Our analysis identifies a set of “abortion-focused Americans” - those with high preference intensity - and compares this group to Americans with less intense abortion preferences. Using descriptive statistics, we investigate the following questions: Who are the abortion-focused Americans? What do abortion-focused Americans want? Is there a relationship between abortion focus and political polarization?

Our analysis finds that abortion-focused Americans hold more extreme views on abortions than non-abortion focused co-partisans. The average position of a abortion-focused Democrat is that abortion should always be legal. The average position for the abortion-focused Republican is that abortion should be allowed in cases such as rape, incest, or when the patient's life is in danger. Interestingly, the position taken by many Republican candidates and stated in the Republican platform is more anti-abortion than the position taken by abortion-focused Republicans. Abortion-focused Americans are more affectively polarized and likely to perceive the candidates of the opposing party as holding more extreme positions on abortion. Abortion-focused Americans are more participatory than non-abortion focused Americans. The characteristics of abortion-focused Americans are the model of an intense minority. Thus, we surmise that this minority had a disproportionate influence on abortion politics over the past 50 years.

We also examine how the political landscape has changed post-Dobbs. Examining the media coverage of abortion, we find a significant increase in the salience of abortion. Additionally, an analysis of the 2022 midterm elections suggests that the salience of abortion increased. These factors suggest Dobbs may have mobilized a frustrated majority of voters.

Authors

• Erin Cassese, University of Delaware

• Heather L Ondercin, Appalachian State University

• Jordan Randall, Appalachian State University