WRAL News Poll: NC voters split on state's abortion laws
North Carolina voters are split on what the state should do with its abortion laws, according to a WRAL News Poll released this week.
SurveyUSA’s scientific poll found:
- 17% felt the state should outlaw abortion
- 22% felt the state should pass more restrictions
- 19% felt the state should lower restrictions
- 26% felt the state should leave the laws as they are
- 16% weren’t sure
Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper said the data is a big change from the state’s religious, conservative past.
“It says that it is still a wedge issue in the state of North Carolina and in the country as a whole, but campaigning on a firm pro-life stance probably isn't going to do anybody a lot of good in the general election,” Cooper said.
SurveyUSA’s scientific poll randomly selected 2,500 North Carolina adults from April 6-10, 2,068 of them registered to vote in the state. The polling firm conducted the interviews in several regions of North Carolina, including Charlotte and west, the Greensboro area, the Raleigh area, southern and coastal communities. Lucid Holdings LLC of New Orleans selected a random sample of participants.
Results have credibility intervals of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
The partisan divide on abortion is stark.
Among North Carolina Republicans:
- 30% would like to see abortion outlawed
- 32% are in favor of more restrictions on the procedure
- 9% think there should be fewer restrictions
- 17% think laws should be left as is
- 12% are not sure
Among North Carolina Democrats:
- 9% would like to see abortion outlawed
- 16% are in favor of more restrictions on the procedure
- 24% would like to see fewer restrictions
- 33% think laws should be left as is
- 18% are not sure
Voters who consider themselves independents were closer to Democrats on this issue: 53% of independents oppose new restrictions on abortion, compared to 31% who favor them.
According to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, at least 24 states have enacted new abortion restrictions since the beginning of last year. On Tuesday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights.
North Carolina could be next, especially if Republican lawmakers retake veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate this fall.
However, Western Carolina political science professor Chris Cooper said any efforts by GOP lawmakers to enact further restrictions on abortion could make it harder for the party to pick up votes.
“The swing voters in the state of North Carolina, the unaffiliated voters, the suburban voters, the ones that are not firmly entrenched in one camp or the other – those people tend to be a little bit more on the pro-choice side than on the pro-life side,” Cooper said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misattributed Chris Cooper's quote to Gov. Roy Cooper. WRAL News regrets the error.
