In a special follow-up poll of the same women voters who were previously interviewed in June (before President Biden announced he wouldn’t run for reelection), KFF finds substantial shifts in favor of Vice President Harris across a range of key election issues, including the handling of rising household and health care costs, as well as increased enthusiasm for the candidates and motivation to vote. As the presidential election draws near, the survey also shows a pronounced rise in the salience of abortion as a voting issue for women under age 30.
The follow-up KFF Survey of Women Voters is distinctive in that the same group of women voters were polled in both June and September 2024, following major events of the 2024 presidential election, including Biden’s departure from the race and Harris’ nomination.
Among the findings:
- Women voters flip on who they believe can best address rising household costs. Roughly half (46%) of women voters now say they trust Harris over Trump (39%) when it comes to addressing household costs. In comparison, women voters in June were split evenly on which party they trusted more to deal with the rising cost of household expenses, giving neither party the advantage. Heading into the 2024 election, inflation remains the number one issue for this group overall (36%) and continues to be the top issue priority for Black (51%) and Hispanic (41%) women
- Harris maintains the lead on health care costs that was held by the Democratic Party this summer; half of women voters (50%) say they trust her to do a better job on this issue, while one in three (34%) say they trust former President Trump.
- A majority of women voters are now satisfied with the presidential candidate options. About two-thirds of women voters (64%) are now satisfied with their options for president, including three in four Democratic women voters (75%). The share of women voters who now report being satisfied has increased more than 20 percentage points since June (40% in June, 64% in September) and includes a nearly 40-point increase among Democratic women voters (36% in June, 75% in September).
- Motivation to vote ramps up among women voters. The share of women voters who say they are more motivated to vote in this election than in past presidential elections has also increased nearly 20 percentage points (45% in June, 64% in September), with seven in 10 Democratic women now saying they are more motivated to vote (44% in June, 70% in September). On the other hand, Republican women voters, who were more positive in June than their Democratic counterparts, now trail in both satisfaction (54% in June, 52% in September) and motivation (53% in June, 61% in September).
- Abortion surpasses inflation as the top election issue for women under age 30. Four in 10 (39%) women voters under 30 now say abortion is the most important issue to their vote, nearly doubling the share who said the same back in June (20%).
- Women voters shift their perspective in Harris’ favor on whether the election will have a major impact on abortion access. Women voters are now 11-percentage points more likely to say that this presidential election will have a major impact on access to abortion and reproductive health care in the U.S. (65%, up from 54%). Among Democratic women of reproductive age—one-fourth (26%) of whom now say abortion is their most important voting issue—79% now say this November’s election matters in a major way for abortion access, up from 66% in June. Meanwhile, Republican women don’t see the election as a major tipping point on abortion access with a majority saying the presidential election will have either a “minor impact” or “no impact” (57%).
- Democratic women voters are more trusting of Harris to deal with abortion policy. In June, before Harris was the Democratic nominee for president, about half of Democratic women voters (49%) said they trusted Harris “a lot” to speak about abortion policy even as she was already serving as the campaign spokesperson on reproductive health. In September, that share has increased to three in four (75%) since she became the Democratic nominee and made abortion one of the hallmarks of her campaign. Harris also holds a strong advantage over Trump on who women voters trust to do a better job deciding abortion policy (58% v. 29%), and fares better in the matchup than Biden did with Trump this summer (46% v. 28%).
Designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at KFF, the follow up Survey of Women Voters was conducted September 11 – October 1, 2024, online and by telephone from a nationally representative sample of 678 registered women voters in the U.S. of the 1,383 women voters who previously took part in the first wave of the KFF Survey of Women voters from May 23 – June 5, 2024 .By re-surveying many of the same of women voters, the survey provides data on how voter attitudes and motivations have changed over the past three months.
The margins of sampling error including the design effect for the follow up survey is plus or minus 5 percentage points. For results based on other subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher.
Explore the results from both the June and September KFF Surveys of Women Voters using the project’s interactive dashboard. The dashboard includes findings about the top voting issues for key groups of women voters, views on reproductive health policies, and how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic presidential candidate.