Abortion rights support didn’t always translate into Harris support —exit poll analysis

Note: Exit poll percentages may have updated since this post.

In the 2024 election, 10 states had abortion-related measures on the ballot — and Americans voted in favor of protecting abortion access in seven of them. 

But support for these ballot measures outpaced support for Kamala Harris, who made abortion rights a hallmark of her campaign. 

In two key battlegrounds — Arizona and Nevada — voters backed measures that added the right to abortion to their state’s constitution, but nonetheless, Harris trails Donald Trump in the vote count in these states. CBS News has projected Nevada for Trump and Arizona currently leans Republican. 

Here’s what the exit polls tell us about voters who “split their ticket:”

Voters favored abortion rights but the economy mattered more

Most people who voted “yes” on abortion-related measures — Proposition 139 in Arizona and Question 6 in Nevada — also voted for Kamala Harris, but about a quarter of these voters backed Donald Trump. 

For this group of voters, the economy was their top issue when voting for president. A majority described their finances as worse off compared to four years ago, so abortion rights mattered to them,  but when it came to voting for president, other issues mattered to them more. These voters were also looking for a candidate who would bring needed change. 

Across nearly every major demographic group in Nevada, more voted for the right to abortion referendum than they did for Harris, according to exit polls. This includes both men and women, younger voters and independents. 

Kamala Harris made an appeal to Republicans, particularly Republican women, often on the issue of abortion rights, but few voted for her. A third of Republican women in Nevada voted “yes” on the right to abortion, but Harris had just single-digit support from these voters. 

We see the same pattern among Latino voters, too, a group Harris lost ground with relative to Joe Biden in 2020. Majorities of Latino men and women in Nevada voted in favor of the state’s abortion ballot measure, but fewer of them backed Harris. 

In CBS News pre-election polling, we found that Harris’ campaign argument that Trump would try to put a national abortion ban in place did not resonate with most voters outside the Democratic Party. Voters were more apt to believe Trump would leave the matter of abortion to the states, so this may have been on the minds of the voters who backed abortion rights in their own state but also backed Trump. 

The CBS News exit poll interviewed thousands of voters across the country at more than 200 polling locations on Election Day and in the weeks leading up to Election Day in order to capture those who cast a ballot early. Edison Research conducted this poll for the National Election Pool.

In:
• Kamala Harris
• Abortion