Michigan voters say court's abortion ruling will influence their vote, poll finds

Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News on Jul 12, 2022


The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn a half-century of abortion rights is likely to drive more Michigan voters to the polls in November as they consider where candidates stand on the controversial issue and weigh enshrining a right to abortion in the state constitution.

About 58% of Michigan voters said they opposed the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court order overturning Roe v. Wade, with 52% strongly opposing the ruling to move abortion rights decisions back to the states, according to a July 5-8 poll of 600 likely general election voters. The poll, commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4), has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

About 86% of respondents said a candidate's position on Roe would be important in deciding their vote compared with 13% who said it would not be important, according to the poll. About 57% said a candidate's position on abortion would be very important.

Among likely independent voters — a key voting bloc that traditionally decides Michigan elections — 68% said they oppose the Supreme Court order and 23% said they do not. Women opposed the court's decision 63% to 30%.

The polling results — combined with a record number of more than 750,000 signatures submitted Monday for a petition initiative to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution — show building motivation among voters of all stripes on abortion and especially among Democrats and independent voters, said Richard Czuba, a pollster for the Glengariff Group, which conducted the survey.

"These women who disagree with the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, they are going to be marching to the polls en masse. This isn’t 1972 anymore,” said Czuba, referring to the defeated 1972 ballot initiative seeking to make abortion legal in Michigan.

In the past, Republican candidates have addressed issues on the margins of abortion rights, such as limits on late-term abortions or parental consent. But the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has forced the question of abortion in its totality into every race in Michigan, the pollster said.

"There is not a candidate running for office who will escape having to say where they stand on this issue," Czuba said.

The poll also found widespread voter opposition to the Supreme Court overturning decades of legal precedent in the 1965 landmark ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that protected a marital couple's right to contraception.

Nearly 90% of respondents surveyed said they support the constitutional right of couples to purchase and use contraception to prevent pregnancies without government restriction. Fewer than 6% of voters said the government should be able to regulate the use of contraceptives.

That question was polled after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion to the decision overturning Roe that the high court "should reconsider" its 57-year-old ruling that nixed state laws regulating the use of birth control. Other justices said the Dobbs decision should be applied to other court precedents.

Abortion a priority issue?

The poll results appear to be in step with the experience of Planned Parenthood of Michigan as it spearheaded a lawsuit that led to a preliminary injunction stopping enforcement of Michigan's abortion ban and submitted with the ACLU of Michigan on Monday a record number of signatures for a wide-ranging ballot initiative seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, said Nicole Wells Stallworth, executive director for Planned Parenthood of Michigan.

The group has seen a groundswell of support since the U.S. Supreme Court opinion was leaked in May and that support, Wells Stallworth said, has come from all corners of the state, from all walks of life.

"Roe was something that we thought was settled and it has been for the last 50 years," she said. "That’s an entire generation where this was a right for all.

"The record signatures we turned in were a record for a reason, and that is because it’s a new time and a new day."

While the high court's June 24 decision appears to be driving voter opinion, it didn't rank at the top of the list of issues with which voters are most concerned in the Detroit News-WDIV poll this month.

When asked about the most important issues facing the U.S., 22% of those surveyed ranked inflation, prices and gas costs as the top issue and nearly 20% named the economy and jobs. Abortion, Roe v. Wade and women's rights ranked third, with 14% of likely general election voters saying it's the nation's most important current issue.

That seems to be in line with the stance of Jennifer Hodge, a 40-year-old Traverse City Republican who participated in the poll. Hodge said she strongly disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling but said education policy and the content taught in schools ranked higher in her list of priorities.

Those priorities, she said, would cause her to vote for Republicans at the end of the day. But she was still torn on the matter Monday and noted the topic of abortion is discussed frequently at her home since her husband doesn't share her views on the matter.

"I do think that it’s a big deal because I think every day our rights as women are being taken away from us," Hodge said.

Genevieve Marnon, legislative director for Right to Life of Michigan, said abortion is only staying on the radar because of constant press releases from Democratic leaders on the matter and the media's complicity in writing about them. The issues individuals are really concerned about ahead of the November election, she said, are inflation and gas prices.

Marnon argued that if the survey question was phrased differently to reflect that the U.S. Supreme Court sent the abortion question back to states to decide, it's likely more people would be amenable to the decision.

Still, Marnon acknowledged that Right to Life of Michigan is fighting along three fronts this year: Elections, the ballot initiative seeking to make abortion a constitutional right, and two lawsuits seeking to overturn Michigan's abortion ban.

"If we lose any one of those, we’re in trouble," Marnon said. "We’ve been very cognizant of that all along. I don’t think it changes our strategy. It just means we’re all going to have to work hard.”

Supreme disapproval

Voters' disapproval with the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court opinion bled into other dispositions toward the high court, suggesting the justices have a "credibility problem," Czuba said.

Nearly 53% of voters, largely split along party lines, said they disapproved of the job being done by the U.S. Supreme Court, with independent voters disapproving by a margin of 54% to 33%, according to the survey. Another 67% said there should be term or age limits imposed on Supreme Court justices, who get lifetime appointments to the nation's highest court.

Nearly 60% said the U.S. Supreme Court makes decisions based on politics while 26% contended those decisions are rooted in "sound legal reasoning."

But voters were split 46% to 41% respectively on whether the U.S. Supreme Court should make decisions that "reflect what they believe the founders meant when they wrote and passed" the Constitution or "reflect modern society."

Republicans tended to support an interpretation in line with the founders while Democratic voters supported decisions in line with modern society. The divide is "eye-opening" in that it gives individuals a peek into the philosophies driving a wedge in politics, Czuba said.

"That seems to me to go to the very core of what is dividing the country right now," the pollster said. "There is this issue of modernity versus the intent."

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