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By Jordan King
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Vice President Kamala Harris is ahead of former President Donald Trump in Arizona, according to a new poll that came after it was confirmed that abortion will be on the ballot in the swing state.
Wednesday's Silver Bulletin presidential election forecast, which aggregates polls based on Nate Silver's model ("a direct descendant of the f/k/a FiveThirtyEight election forecast") shows Harris with 45.3 percent support to Trump's 44 percent.
The fact that abortion is on the ballot in Arizona could be helping Harris' campaign, political scientists said. When voters hit the polls in November, they will also get a chance to decide whether to make abortion a guaranteed constitutional right.
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There is a stark contrast between the Republican and Democrat positions on the issue and several experts suspect it will impact the presidential election
University of Washington political science professor Sophia Jordán Wallace told Newsweek she thinks abortion could result in cross-party voting.
"Public opinion data shows widespread support for some level of protection of abortion rights among Democrats, independents and some Republicans," she said. "We have already seen this issue lead to some crossing of party lines in elections, particularly among suburban women who may have voted Republican in a prior election."
Polls and surveys generally show that most Americans believe in abortion being available in some capacity, although many differ on what circumstances it should apply.
For example, data published by Pew Research Center's American Trend Panel, on May 13, showed that 63 percent of U.S. adults believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 36 percent say it should be illegal in all or most cases.
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The majority (96 percent) of liberal Democrats believe in legal abortion, along with 76 percent of conservative-leaning and moderate Democrats.
Of those who identified as conservative Republicans, 71 percent said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while 27 percent said the opposite. But among moderate and liberal-leaning Republicans, 67 percent believed in abortion rights.
The results were based on 8,709 respondents between April 8 and 14.
Harris has consistently supported abortion rights. When she was a senator, she voted against a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and, as vice president, she spoke out against the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Trump, who has said he believes abortion should be allowed under the exceptions of rape, incest and protecting the life of the mother, is running on a policy of letting each state decide its rules on abortion.
But the two candidates' running mates could not have more differing views on the issue. Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has been a vocal supporter of abortion rights. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, the Minnesota governor's state was the first to pass a law protecting abortion rights. Planned Parenthood Votes Executive Director Jenny Lawson called Walz "a reproductive rights champion for Minnesotans who's signed laws expanding and protecting the right to abortion and making health care more affordable."
Walz's Republican counterpart, Ohio Senator JD Vance, has said he would like abortion to be illegal nationally. He has faced criticism for a 2021 interview with Spectrum News in which he said that "two wrongs don't make a right" when asked whether a woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy to full term after she had been a victim of rape or incest and that unborn babies should not be seen as "inconveniences."
He has since towed Trump's line on abortion, arguing for letting voters make the decisions in states.
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Christina Ewig, professor and faculty director of the Center on Women, Gender and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota, told Newsweek: "I expect Governor Walz will be able to clearly articulate the importance of reproductive rights, including abortion, on the campaign trail.
"This is an issue that gives Democrats a political advantage in this campaign, given broad public support for abortion rights. I doubt the Harris-Walz ticket will squander this opportunity to draw a clear line between themselves and the Trump-Vance ticket on reproductive rights."
Political scientist Erik C. Nisbet, professor of policy analysis and communication at Northwestern University, previously told Newsweek that the topic of women's reproductive rights and abortion is one of the several "cultural battleground issues" that could mobilize voters.
Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has spoken about how her position on abortion attracted votes from Republican women in her state.
She told the 9 to 5ish with theSkimm last month: "I did roundtables all across Michigan before the last election. Michigan is a swing state, it is a close state, and I won by almost 11 points because we had reproductive rights on the ballot. Another [reason] is because we showed up and we listened and we empowered people.
"I sat across the table from so many women who said: 'I'm a Republican, I did not vote for you, but I'm out knocking doors for you this time around, because you're the only one fighting for my daughter's right.'"
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