Republican women are more motivated than Democratic women to vote in 2024: Survey

(WASHINGTON) — A smaller number of the women voters who cast ballots for President Joe Biden in 2020 said they’d vote for him again in 2024 than the share of women voters who supported former President Donald Trump in 2020 who said they’d do so again this year, according to a new set of polls from KFF, a health care research nonprofit group.

The polls were taken of women both nationally and in the battleground states of Arizona and Michigan.

Of women voters who cast ballots for Biden in 2020, 83% said they would vote for him again in 2024 — with 7% who said they’ll vote for Trump and 10% who said they would vote for someone else or wouldn’t vote.

Of the women voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2020, 92% said they would do so again this year. None said they’d vote for Biden and 7% said they’d vote for someone else or wouldn’t vote.

This dip in support from women for Biden — a critical voting bloc ahead of the 2024 race, which is expected to be a close contest between Trump and Biden — comes as a majority of women across party, age, race and ethnicity feel “anxious” (68%) or “frustrated” (70%) ahead of November, the polls found. At the same time, only 21% said they are “uninterested” in the election.

Both Trump and Biden will be working to court women voters as the election nears.

The majority of women voters (60%) said they are not satisfied with their options for president this cycle, though the poll found that Republican women are more motivated (53%) than Democratic women to vote (44%). Twenty-nine percent of independent women voters are motivated, according to the polls.

More specifically, women voters supportive of Trump are more motivated (53%) than Biden voters (49%) to vote in the upcoming election.

The polls also carefully examined how the issue of abortion is impacting those voters and could affect turnout. The data suggests that the majority (65%) of Republican women who said abortion should be illegal are motivated to vote in 2024.

But broadly, most women voters (54%) said that the 2024 presidential election will have a “major impact” on access to abortion and reproductive health care in the country — with Democratic women (71%) saying more than Republican women (37%) that it will have that “major impact.” Forty-three percent of independent women said they thought it would have a “major impact.”

Furthermore, Democratic women reported they are more motivated to vote in states that might have abortion ballot initiatives in November compared to states without the measures, KFF’s polls found.

This is shown nationally: 83% of Democratic women voters said they will definitely vote in states that will/may have initiatives — a larger amount than the share of women who say they will vote (72%) in other states.

In states with potential ballot initiatives, according to KFF’s count, Republican and Democratic women voters are about equally likely to say they are certain to vote (82% and 83%, respectively). In all other states, Republican women voters are more likely than Democratic women voters to say that they’ll definitely vote in November (80% to 72%, respectively).

In Arizona, where there will likely be an abortion ballot initiative come November, 45% of women voters said they strongly support the initiative, with 22% saying they somewhat support it. Forty-nine percent of all Arizona women voters and 60% of Democratic women said they’re more motivated to vote this election than in elections past if the Arizona Right to Abortion initiative appears on the ballot.

In Michigan, where there isn’t an abortion ballot measure in 2022, 60% said they believe that abortion was settled by the constitutional amendment that they passed in 2022. Forty-eight percent of Michigan women voters said that initiative was very important to their turnout in the 2022 midterms.

Inflation remains the chief issue for women ahead of the 2024 election, however — nationally, in Arizona and in Michigan. In all three places, “threats to democracy” ranked as the second-largest concern and immigration and border security came third.

KFF noted that many within Biden’s base don’t approve of his handling of the issue of inflation. Nearly half of Democratic women voters overall — especially younger Democrats (72%), Black women voters (55%), Hispanic women voters (57%) and lower-income women voters (55%) — do not approve of how Biden is handling the issue.

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