Largest gap between Democrats and Republicans on abortion legality in nearly 20 years: Pew
Almost four years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a Pew Research Center poll has found the widest partisan gap in opinions about whether abortion should be legal since the research center first started measuring opinion on the issue nearly 20 years ago.
Overall, 60% of Americans said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That's down slightly from 2024 when it was 63%, but roughly on par with views in March 2022, right before the Dobbs decision overturned the right to have an abortion in the U.S. (61%).
But the gap between Republicans and Democrats has never been larger than it is today.
The Pew poll, conducted in January, found 84% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a figure that has been at that point or higher since 2022. But among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 36% said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, down from 41% in 2024.
Today's 48-percentage point gap between Democrats and Republicans is twice the size it was in 2007 when partisans were separated by 24 points.
Partisanship is a much larger factor than gender in attitudes toward abortion. Majorities of women (64%) and men (55%) said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. While that 9-point gap is wider than it has been since 2007, it's mostly a reflection of a gap between Republican men and women.
While majorities of Republican and Republican-leaning independent men and women said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, a larger share of Republican men (67%) than women (58%) said this.
Similar shares of Democratic and Democratic-leaning men (83%) and women (85%) said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
When asked about how easy it would be to get an abortion in the area where they live, 45% said it would be "difficult," a share that has grown from 32% in 2019 and 39% in 2024. About half (51%) said it would be easy to get an abortion in their area.
Among adults who live in states where abortion is prohibited, 73% said it is difficult to get an abortion in the area where they live. Among those in states where abortion is restricted by gestational limits, 64% said it is difficult to get an abortion.
And in states where abortion is legal at or beyond the framework set by Roe, 68% said it is easy to get an abortion in their area.
By more than 2-to-1, Americans said that medication abortion should be legal (55%) rather than illegal (26%). The share saying it should be illegal has risen from 20% in 2024. Another 18% today said they are unsure on this question, a share that decreased from 25% in 2024.
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are nearly eight times more likely to say that medication abortion should be legal (76% to 10%), while Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are 8 points more likely to say medication abortion should be illegal (43% to 35%).
A slim majority of Americans (52%) said the statement "the decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman" describes their views "extremely" or "very" well. Another 27% said it described their views "not too well" or "not at all well."
This Pew Research Center poll was conducted Jan. 20-26, 2026, among 8,512 U.S. adults and has an overall margin of error of +/- 1.4 percentage points.
