Media Tip Sheets

Will Abortion Bring Voters to the 2024 Polls?

Thursday, April 4, 2024, By Ellen Mbuqe
Reporters looking for an expert to discuss how abortion can be a motivating factor for voters, please see comments from political science professor Shana Gadarian who studies political behavior and is co-author of “Pandemic Politics, The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID” and “Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World.”
This week, Florida’s state supreme court allowed the 6-week abortion ban to take effect but also allowed a proposed amendment protecting abortion rights in the state constitution to be on the ballot in November. Professor Gadarian says that this could prove to be a powerful motivator for voters.
  • “In every state where abortion has been on the ballot since the end of Roe v. Wade, abortion access has won with significant majorities even in conservative states. This means that there are voters in places like Kansas, Ohio, and Kentucky who normally support Republican candidates who turned out in off-year elections to support abortion access as a single issue,” said Gadarian.
  • “As in other states, I would anticipate that there are a lot of conservative voters in Florida who ultimately support more access to abortion than the 6-week ban that is going to go into effect and abortion access is a popular issue. Two things make this ballot measure more challenging for abortion access than the previous ballot measures:
    • “1. the threshold for victory for this constitutional amendment that would enshrine access is 60% which is more than the threshold that Ohio’s constitutional amendment won by (57%), and
    • 2. being during a presidential election cycle means that you will see higher turnout generally which will include more Republicans voters who may be more skeptical of a constitutional amendment,” said Gadarian.
  • “That doesn’t mean that it will lose – this constitutional amendment will likely drive more Democrats to the polls, but in my mind, the election timing does make it more challenging. What you are likely to see is that there will be cross-over conservative voters who vote for abortion access and Trump for president so I wouldn’t anticipate that even this salient issue is enough to swing Florida toward Biden even if people support a policy that is more aligned with Democrats,” said Gadarian.
Please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, executive director of media relations at Syracuse University, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu to schedule an interview.
You can also see some of Professor Gadarian’s interviews: