This study asks whether preferences about who should decide abortion policy — the federal government or individual states — changed the way Americans translated support for reproductive health care into votes in the 2024 US presidential election. Using a novel set of survey questions about abortion generally, access to the abortion pill (mifepristone), and locus-of-authority preferences, the authors test whether those locus preferences conditioned vote choice for Donald Trump. They report only partial support for the expectation that state-versus-federal authority preferences meaningfully alter electoral responses on reproductive issues.
Novel survey measures of locus of authority Distinction between abortion and mifepristone Partial support for conditional voting effects
Data and methods
The analysis relies on a new set of survey questions introduced by the authors that measure (1) support for constitutional protection for abortion, (2) support for access to mifepristone, and (3) whether respondents prefer policy to be decided at the federal level or by individual states. The abstract frames the design as observational survey analysis using these novel measures to examine associations with vote choice in the 2024 US presidential contest.
Main findings
The authors find that support for a constitutional protection for abortion was strongly associated with voting against Donald Trump regardless of respondents’ locus-of-authority preferences. By contrast, for mifepristone access the pattern differed: among voters who supported access to the pill, those comfortable leaving the decision to states were significantly more likely to support Trump. The authors interpret this as consistent with Trump’s emphasis on state control functioning as strategic ambiguity, particularly on a less polarized reproductive health issue like mifepristone.
- Support for constitutional abortion protections predicted voting against Trump irrespective of federalism views.
- Locus-of-authority mattered more for mifepristone: pro-access respondents who favored state decision-making were likelier to back Trump.
