Trump Risks Losing Suburban Women Over Abortion

Trump Risks Losing Suburban Women Over Abortion

Abortion is the most powerful issue driving suburban women who could decide the presidential election. Now President Biden is trying to harness that energy, while Donald Trump is looking to redirect it.

A recent Wall Street Journal poll of seven battleground states found that 39% of suburban women cite abortion as a make-or-break issue for their vote—making it by far the most motivating issue for the group. Nearly three-quarters of them say the procedure should be legal all or most of the time, and a majority thinks Trump’s policies are too restrictive.

Abortion has been top of mind for voters since the 2022 Supreme Court decision eliminating federal protections for the procedure, which unfurled a messy patchwork of state laws across the country.

That spotlight intensified in the past week, as Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, said the issue should be left to the states but has taken murky or conflicting positions on some hot-button proposals. Then Arizona’s highest court revived a Civil-War era ban on most abortions, heightening the stakes in a swing state where voters will likely cast ballots in November on a measure that would legalize abortion until viability.

Those moves are reverberating in the suburban areas where women helped deliver the White House to Trump in 2016 and swung it to Biden in 2020.

Longtime Wisconsin Democratic activist Dana Glasstein, 57, said that abortion gives her an extra sense of urgency as she knocks on doors in the Milwaukee suburbs to encourage people to vote. She had an abortion herself as a 19-year-old college student and expressed frustration that young women today may have less access to the procedure.

“Abortion was safe, it was legal and I exercised my right,” said the educator who lives in Mequon, Wis. “I have no regrets and the fact that I had that right allowed me to control the trajectory of my life.”

Today, she said that women frequently share similar concerns with her. “When I ask what the issues are that would concern them and get them to the polls, they definitely mention women’s reproductive rights,” she said.

Biden beat Trump nationally in 2020 among suburban women by 19 percentage points, according to the AP VoteCast survey of the electorate. The Journal’s recent swing-state poll showed Biden leading by 17 points with that voter group in a two-way matchup, though roughly a third of suburban women were either undecided or hadn’t fully committed to Trump or Biden.

Interviews with roughly two dozen women in key suburban areas in recent weeks found that many were motivated by abortion, naming it as a leading reason to back Biden. Still, the interviews showed that Biden faced the risk of having other issues crowd out abortion as areas of concern, including the war in Gaza and inflation. And some of the women said they planned to stick with Trump.

Kelly Stacknick, 48, of Chandler, Ariz., called her state’s ruling “infuriating,” but said it may not drive her vote, expressing concerns about the cost of living. She voted for Biden in 2020, but said she was still considering Trump and Biden this time, though she would prefer other options. “Get these old guys that we’ve been dealing with for eight years out of here and get someone new,” she said.

According to the Journal poll, 57% of suburban women thought Trump’s policies on abortion were too restrictive. Just 20% said Biden’s policies weren’t restrictive enough. The survey was conducted by Democratic pollster Michael Bocian and Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who worked for a pro-Trump super PAC when the poll was conducted and has since joined the Trump campaign.

Biden has campaigned on a promise to restore abortion rights and has used the issue to assail Trump, who as president appointed three justices to the court that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Following the Arizona ruling, the president’s campaign moved quickly. They pushed out an ad that blamed Trump for the struggles of a woman who couldn’t get an abortion in Texas after receiving a likely fatal fetal diagnosis. They also pumped money on the Arizona airwaves with an ad featuring Biden promising to protect abortion. Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned on this issue in Arizona Friday, saying: “Here’s what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering, less freedom…But we are not going to let that happen.”

Trump, meanwhile, has struggled to find his footing on the issue. While he has repeatedly bragged about the 2022 decision, saying Friday, “We broke Roe v. Wade,” he has also sought distance by saying decisions should be made by the states. But the Arizona ruling underscored the risks with that strategy: After initially saying it was a state issue, Trump later said the Arizona court had gone too far and that the governor and state legislature should “remedy what has happened.”

Trump is also vulnerable to charges by the Biden campaign that by leaving it to states he is endorsing a six-week ban in Florida, where he lives and will be voting in the 2024 election, as well as other states throughout the South with effective bans. Trump said this week without evidence that “Florida’s probably going to change” its policy, but didn’t say what he thought the state’s position should be.

Trump described himself as pro-choice in 1999, but said in 2015 he had “evolved” on the issue and later pledged to appoint antiabortion judges to the Supreme Court. As president, he endorsed a 20-week federal ban on abortion in 2018. As recently as last month, he suggested he was open to a 15-week federal ban. On Thursday, he told reporters he wouldn’t sign a national abortion ban.

Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump has long supported letting states decide on abortion and said that immigration and inflation will remain top concerns of women across the country.

Trump’s shifting positions have prompted some voters not to trust him on the issue.

“When Trump came out with his statement…I just don’t believe it. I am definitely still fearful that once the election goes through that he would be OK with them having a ban over the country and that my state rights would be taken away regardless,” said Dr. Dana Rockwell, a 38-year-old rheumatologist and a Democrat from Royal Oak, Mich., who plans to vote for Biden.

While Trump will keep being asked about abortion, the former president and his campaign are trying to pivot attention to issues like immigration and the economy, where polls show him with a clear advantage over Biden.

That focus is helping him maintain the support of voters like Michelle Hoppe, 61, of Fitchburg, Wis., who said she would be backing Trump and that abortion wasn’t a top issue for her. “When he was president, our economy was booming across all demographics. We had immigration under control,” she said. “My 401(k) was going great.”

Linda Sweets, 69, a Republican retiree from Waukesha, Wis., said she would also be voting for Trump though she didn’t always like his rhetoric. On abortion she said, “I’m pro-life. I’m Catholic.”

The laws governing abortion vary by state, as do the politics. In Michigan, voters in 2022 approved an amendment enshrining the right in the state constitution. In Wisconsin the procedure is legal, but a court battle over whether an 1849 law should bar abortions continues.

Jessie Kelly, 34, a skilled trades worker for General Motors in Mount Clemens, Mich., and an independent, said she viewed Biden as more supportive of abortion rights than Trump. But she said she’s considering not voting for president in the election—leaving the top of her ballot blank—because of Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. And she expressed frustration in seemingly having to choose between abortion rights and Gaza.

“What I think is happening inside of Israel and Palestine right now, I believe, is genocide. So if I go in there and I check that box, am I complicit in saying that it’s OK to use my tax dollars for genocide? I can’t do that,” Kelly said.

Erin McManaway, 28, an independent from West Allis, Wis., said she voted “unaffiliated” in the Democratic primary in the state over her concerns about Biden’s Israel policy. “He needs to get it together when it comes to Gaza,” she said. “The fact that Biden is still sending weapons to them is unacceptable.”

But McManaway said she would vote for Biden over Trump in November, with abortion as a leading reason. She said that shortly after the Dobbs ruling, “I had to drive a friend to Illinois to get an abortion. She was in a situation when having a child wasn’t feasible.”

Some said they were considering alternatives to Trump or Biden. Rachael Jurek, 47, of Whitefish Bay, Wis., said she might write in Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.), who launched an unsuccessful primary bid against Biden. “I feel the Democrats, if they wanted my vote, they would have listened to me,” said Jurek, who described herself as an independent. She stressed that she feels “there should be safeguards in place for women to get the healthcare they need.”

One concern for some Democrats is maintaining energy on the abortion issue, following years of fights—and years of activism around the Trump presidency.

Lori Goldman, 65, a Democratic activist in Michigan’s Oakland County who founded an organization called Fems for Dems, said many of her allies are in “battle fatigue” after a spirited effort to win support for the 2022 abortion amendment. While she said many Democrats are “waking up” to the threat of a potential national abortion ban, they are still struggling to show the urgency throughout the state.

“Donald Trump is like the hydra, you know? You cut off a head, he grows another one. That’s what we’re battling,” Goldman said. “It’s going to take us all. We have to keep going. We can’t allow fatigue or disillusionment to stop us.”

Write to Catherine Lucey at [email protected] and Ken Thomas at [email protected]