MU polls: Wisconsin shows consistent support for abortion

Wisconsin map, with Madison highlighted
Wisconsin map, with Madison highlighted(MGN)
Published: May. 3, 2022 at 1:39 PM CDT|Updated: May. 3, 2022 at 2:26 PM CDT
Email This Link
Share on Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - While Wisconsin may be on the cusp of seeing its ban on abortion restored, a sizable majority of its residents have consistently supported pro-choice stances for at least a decade, according to Marquette Law School polls.

The director of the university’s polling operation, Charles Franklin, tweeted ten years of MU poll results on the abortion issue. Through that entire time approximately six in ten Wisconsinites backed legalized abortion in all cases or in most cases. In his tweet, Franklin described the stability of support and opposition “notable.”

In the 11 polls he listed, support never wavered more than a few points from that 60% figure, except twice. It dipped to 55 percent in polls from 2018 and 2020. Those were the second and third-to-last polls cited, by the time of the most recent one in Franklin’s list, from Oct. 2021, support had rebounded to 61 percent.

Conversely, opposition to abortion in most or all instances has hovered in the thirties for much of that time, hitting a peak of 39 percent in 2014 and dipping as low as 29 percent in Sept. 2018.

Franklin’s tweet comes the day after Politico published a draft opinion of a Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. If those precedents fell, abortions may become illegal again in Wisconsin because of an 1849 law that was unenforceable because of the Supreme Court decisions, yet remained on the books.

Copyright 2022 WMTV. All rights reserved.