https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/abortion-polls-are-garbage/
Media outlets do everything they can to obfuscate the issue and protect Democrats. It’s obvious in the questions they ask.
With the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion by Samuel Alito overturning Roe v. Wade, the media have gone into hyperdrive trying to obscure the real contours of the debate. One of the most obvious ways they do it is by highlighting politically motivated surveys and conducting push-polling.
Take Politico’s recent Morning Consult poll, which informs us that 53 percent of voters say Roe should not be overturned. Even among Republican voters, only 48 percent support overturning Roe. First of all, who cares? It’s a completely irrelevant query, really. The court exists not to care what polls tells them. And, really, on what constitutional grounds do these 53 percent of Americans maintain the decision should be upheld? There is tons of evidence illustrating that, other than in the broadest terms, most Americans have no idea what Roe entails.
If you want to delve into the topic, a more far more worthwhile line of inquiry would be: “Do you believe the issue of abortion should be a protected constitutional right, or should voters be able to decide the issue on a state level?” This properly lays out the reality of choices that voters face. And I suspect the numbers would look quite different when the issue is framed properly. But, of course, that would mean informing those being questioned that overturning Roe doesn’t necessarily mean an abortion ban. That would be inconvenient.
The Morning Consult poll also finds that 41 percent of voters say it is “very important” for them to vote for a candidate in the 2022 midterms who supports “abortion access.” Every Republican-led law that’s been enacted on the issue of abortion in recent years, including the Mississippi bill that sparked the Dobbs case, provides “access” to abortion. Maybe some future bill won’t, but these do. Do you think those 41 percent understand this reality — one that is purposedly obscured by the question? I don’t.