Republicans are almost evenly split over the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to uphold an 1864 law that would ban nearly all abortions, new polling shows.
Forty-nine percent of Republicans strongly or somewhat disapprove of the decision, while 46% of Republicans strongly or somewhat approve of it, according to polls of more than a thousand likely voters released Tuesday by the left-wing think tank Data for Progress. That division reflects the Republican Party’s identity crisis over abortion politics after Roe v Wade, as Republican politicians have struggled to talk about an issue that was once their bread-and-butter but has become increasingly toxic to them.
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Data for Progress found that voters divided along party lines on whether they believed Donald Trump’s statements on the issue. Trump has said the Arizona Supreme Court has gone too far and has insisted the decision will be “corrected.” He also continued to say that abortion remains an issue best decided by state governments, a position he took in a video published just a day before the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling.
In the group’s polls, more than 80% of Democrats said they believed Trump was “dishonest” and would sign national restrictions on abortion. About the same percentage of Republicans said Trump was “fair” and would not further restrict abortion.
The independents were more divided. Forty-four percent of independent and third-party voters said they thought Trump was honest, but 41% of those voters believed Trump was dishonest.
Forty-one percent of independent and third-party voters also believed that Trump would restrict abortion access if elected president, while 30% thought he would keep abortion access about the same. Only a quarter of Republicans thought Trump would restrict access to abortion; about half thought he would leave abortion access alone. Only 12% thought he would tighten abortion restrictions, while the rest of Republican voters in the poll said they didn’t know.
But ultimately, most voters thought the president of the United States has relatively little to do with abortion rights. Republicans, independents and third-party voters in particular think members of Congress, statewide officials and state legislatures all have more to do with setting abortion policies.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe 2022, the Republican Party embraced the abortion ban and passed numerous restrictions that, now that Roe has fallen, have been able to take full effect and cut off access to the procedure for millions of women. But most Americans believe abortion should at least be available in the first trimester of pregnancy and, fueled by outrage over Roe’s passing, abortion rights advocates have won multiple Red State ballot measures to protect abortion rights.
Some Republican officials and candidates have since tried to moderate their stance on abortion; Several Arizona Republicans with a history of anti-abortion beliefs have denounced the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision. However, Republicans in the state legislature also blocked an effort to repeal the 1864 abortion ban, which would allow abortions only in cases where the pregnant person’s life was in danger and has no exceptions for rape or incest.
