As a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the Nevada Constitution goes before voters in November, a new poll shows Silver State residents oppose criminalizing the procedure.

According to a survey conducted in Spanish and English by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, more than 80 percent of Nevada voters across both major parties said they do not want to criminalize abortion before a fetus is generally considered able to survive outside the womb with support (about 24 weeks). That includes 69 percent of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats. 

About 70 percent of Nevada respondents said they oppose criminalizing abortion at any stage of pregnancy.

Pollster Steven Kull, a political psychologist at the University of Maryland and director of the Program for Public Consultation, said in an interview that the survey, which provides briefings and arguments for and against certain policies, centered on questions government officials are considering, which led to the focus on criminalization.

“We want to zero in on what the government would do,” he said. “The government doesn’t ‘allow abortion,’ it doesn’t put out a sign that says, ‘We hereby endorse abortion.’ The real lever in the picture is to punish the doctor or the woman through criminalization.”

Polls ahead of the 2022 election showed abortion was one of the top issues motivating Nevada voters to cast their ballots. Democrats made abortion one of the focal points of the state’s U.S. Senate race that year. U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s (D-NV) campaign hammered her Republican opponent, Adam Laxalt, on abortion, and his campaign responded with attacks centered on the economy. Cortez Masto won the election by less than 1 percentage point.

Nevada state law has protected abortion up to 24 weeks for more than 30 years, which could only be overturned by a direct majority vote from the people. Nevada’s lawmakers and governor have no power to restrict abortion access earlier than that time frame.

The University of Maryland’s poll indicates that 78 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of Republicans in Nevada would support a federal abortion law that aligned with their preferred abortion policy, and majorities of Republicans and Democrats support policies expanding access to birth control.

Those policies include requiring schools to provide education about birth control, ensuring access to birth control across the county, continuing the Affordable Care Act mandate that insurance plans cover long-term birth control options and increasing funding for health care clinics providing free or low-cost birth control.

“People are uncomfortable with there being abortions and they're wanting to reduce abortions,” Kull said. “It appears that one of the directions they go is to support access to birth control to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies to begin with.”

This year, as Democrats push a ballot measure to enshrine abortion access in the Nevada Constitution, they’re hoping the issue will once again help galvanize Democratic voters in Nevada to turn out and elect Vice President Kamala Harris as president, re-elect U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and win support for other Democrats down the ballot. 

Democrats have said enshrining abortion rights in the state Constitution is necessary after the fall of Roe v. Wade two years ago led to states across the nation enacting abortion bans.

The University of Maryland survey is one of six issue-focused polls the group is conducting in swing states ahead of the 2024 general election. In Nevada, 544 adults were polled in online opt-in surveys from June 18 to July 3, with a margin of error of 4.8 percent. 

In open-ended answers, respondents wrote about the need for people to make health-care decisions for themselves, the potential for unwanted pregnancies to lead to neglect for a child and the risks criminalizing abortion present to public health by forcing pregnant people to seek unsafe procedures.

“I feel that a woman's right to choose to make her own decisions should be hers and hers alone,” wrote one survey respondent. “Legislatures who pass laws without regard to a woman's right are wrong. It is not the job of [the] government to legislate morality.”

Across all six swing states surveyed, researchers indicated that the public overestimated nationwide support for criminalizing abortion, with the majority estimating 40 percent or more of Americans support criminalizing the procedure, whereas the actual level of support is 11 percent.

From federal to local elections, abortion emerged as a bellwether issue following the end of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The ending of the federal protections resulted in efforts to enact abortion bans by Republicans and efforts to protect abortion access by Democrats. 

Candidates have either latched onto abortion as a way to motivate voters or shied away from the subject altogether, downplaying the issue.

While Rosen has made protecting abortion rights a visible part of her re-election campaign this cycle, her Republican challenger Sam Brown has been less firm on his stance, avoiding concrete answers to abortion-related policy questions.

In recent audio obtained by The Nevada Independent, Brown refused to say whether he would support the abortion protections going before voters in November.

Though the survey focused on criminalization, it also assessed voters' perceptions of attempts to reduce abortions through mandatory ultrasounds, required waiting periods and bans on the federal government paying for abortions.

About half of respondents indicated they disapproved of federal law that does not allow federal funds to pay for abortion costs, unless the pregnancy is a result of rape, incest or endangers the pregnant person’s life. More than 62 percent of Nevada Democratic respondents said they opposed the federal policy compared to almost 36 percent of Republican respondents.

“Women should not be put in a position where they have to make a certain amount of money to be able to have the procedure done,” one respondent wrote.

Respondents were less supportive of policies aiming to reduce abortion through mandatory ultrasounds and waiting periods. 

Though 56 percent of Nevada voters said they would oppose such policies, about half of Republicans (52 percent) said they were in favor of requiring doctors to show an ultrasound of a fetus to the parent before an abortion and 49 percent of Republicans said they would support requiring a one- to three-day mandatory waiting period before an abortion. A majority of Democrats opposed these policies.