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Nearly a quarter of women voters who think abortion should be legal all or most of the time plan to cast their votes for former President Donald Trump, according to analysis of the latest 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll. 

For these women, other issues — the economy, immigration — are more important than abortion, and they broadly see their position as in line with Trump, who has made conflicting statements about what he believes the state of abortion access should be. They think that his stance of putting abortion in the hands of the states will increase access, though it has largely done the opposite since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a decision Trump takes credit for. 

Laura Carter, a 56-year-old Florida resident, said she registered as a Republican for the first time in 2016 to vote for Trump. Before then, she was a lifelong Democrat. Carter believes women should have a right to an abortion, and supports states having ballot measures to vote directly on abortion rights. 

“Trump said we should give it back to the states, so states will make their own decisions — the people living in that state will decide by voting,”  Carter said. “I think people should vote. I don’t think the state should just decide. They’re still part of the government. We still run them. They still work for us, so it should always be up to the people to vote.” 

Florida has a measure on the ballot this year that would make abortion legal until fetal viability. It needs 60 percent support to pass. Trump’s position on the measure has been confusing. For a while, he avoided answering how he, as a Florida resident, would vote on it. Then in late August, he said the state’s six-week ban is too strict, indicating he might vote to overturn it. But the next day, Trump clarified that he would vote against the ballot measure, which would keep the six-week ban in place. 

Fourteen states have near-total abortion bans, and four states ban abortion after six weeks, which is often before a person knows they are pregnant. Several states have voted on ballot measures relating to abortion access in the past two years, with each one reaffirming the right to abortion. This year, 10 states will vote on whether to enshrine reproductive rights in their constitution. But not all states have a way for voters to make their voices heard in that capacity.

Carter said she also thinks that a six-week ban is too short, but that the Democrats are pushing too far, referencing the lie that Trump raised in the most recent presidential debate that Democrats support infanticide. Republican politicians often argue that Democrats support abortions “up until the moment of birth,” but the vast majority of abortions take place far earlier. 

Still, Carter said, abortion access is not the most important issue driving her voting decision. This election cycle, like in 2016, she’s far more concerned about the economy and immigration — topics on which she said she agrees more with Trump than Harris.  

“It’s been a shit show — excuse my language — these past three-and-a-half to four years,” Carter said. “People can’t afford to eat. There’s two people on my street that are becoming homeless. They did what they could, but they can’t afford to live anymore. It’s totally insane. Abortion is kind of on the backburner for me.”  

Carter said the economy was better under Trump, and she supported his efforts to get the borders closed. 

“Everything he tried to do, the Democratic Party — and I hate them — they stopped him,” Carter said. “They created turmoil. The Democratic Party turned me Republican.” 

Nevada, where abortion is already legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, has a measure on this year’s ballot that would enshrine in the state constitution the right to abortion up to fetal viability, which is typically around 23 to 25 weeks.

Barbara Zimmermannord, a 61-year-old Las Vegas resident, has voted both as a Democrat and Republican in the past, but is now registered as an Independent. She believes that abortion should be legal in most cases until 15 or 16 weeks of pregnancy. But, Zimmermannord said, she’s more concerned with immigration, and she does not believe a Trump presidency would have a major impact on abortion access anyway. 

“Abortion is important, and if I liked the Democratic candidate better, I might have been swayed more. The Republicans can be a little bit crazy, but I don’t think they’re going to let” abortion be banned,” Zimmermannord said. “They’ll figure it out.”

The Republican Party’s platform supports states establishing fetal personhood, which would effectively prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy by granting equal protection to fertilized embryos through the 14th Amendment. Trump has tried to walk the line between appealing to anti-abortion voters while not alienating the majority of people who believe abortion should be legal. His focus has turned to more common ground: IVF access. Trump said he wants the government or insurance companies to fully cover people’s IVF treatments, which cost about $20,000 per patient for one cycle, but has not elaborated on how.

Zimmermannord said she doesn’t like Trump as a person and isn’t excited to vote for him, but she’s frustrated with the way President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee. 

She’s supporting Trump, she said, and doesn’t believe that anything in Project 2025, a conservative think tank’s blueprint for a potential next Trump administration, would happen. 

“It’s simply not true, this Project 2025,” Zimmermannord said. “Nobody believes that garbage. And the way [the Democrats] do their commercials where they leave out half of it. … I mean they have to knock it off. Neither one of [the parties] tell the truth. It’s annoying.” 

Sundway Swymer, a 77-year-old Florida resident and lifelong Republican, said that Trump isn’t her favorite person but that she plans on voting for him because her priorities seem to align with his.  

“I’m choosing him for his policies,” Swymer said. “I know that I believe in a lot of the things that he professes. I want the border closed. I’m also interested in getting the cost of living down, not for me particularly, but for other people. This is horrible: 18 eggs for $10 in Florida. That’s crazy.”

Swymer said abortion isn’t a main priority on her list of issues, but she does think that she and Trump agree that six weeks is too short and would like to see any abortion bans only apply after 16 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. 

“I think that people have the right to choose, but it wouldn’t be an option for me personally if I was young enough to have children,” Swymer said. “Donald Trump isn’t in favor of six weeks either, right?”

SurveyMonkey conducted this poll online from August 26 through September 4 among a national sample of 20,762 adults, including 18,123 registered voters, with a modeled error estimate of plus or minus 1.0 percentage points.

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