Poll Finds Support for Florida’s Abortion Ballot Measure Is Falling Short

Earlier surveys have shown higher support, but the state’s Republican governor is working hard to defeat the initiative.

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Abortion rights activists are hoping to overturn Florida’s ban on abortion after six weeks in pregnancy.

A ballot measure that would establish a right to abortion in the Florida Constitution is not on track to pass in November, according to a poll by The New York Times and Siena College.

A plurality of voters expressed support for the measure — significantly more than those who said they would vote “no” — and a large percentage of voters were undecided. But Florida requires 60 percent of voters to approve any ballot amendment, an unusually high threshold, and the poll found support for the measure falling well short of that.

Conducted between Sept. 29 and Oct. 6, the poll found that 46 percent of likely voters said they would vote for the abortion rights amendment, 38 percent would vote against, and 16 percent said they did not know or refused to answer. Voters in the last category were twice as likely to support former President Donald J. Trump for president as they were to support Vice President Kamala Harris.

Abortion rights groups have prevailed in all seven state ballot measures across the country in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

Anti-abortion groups are hoping to stop that momentum in Florida, where a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy took effect in May. It is one of 10 states with abortion rights questions on the ballot in November, but in eight of those states, the measures require only a simple majority to pass, and polling suggests that they will.

While abortion rights have prevailed even in states such as Kansas and Ohio that, like Florida, lean conservative, they have not topped 60 percent in any of those states. (The highest total was 58.97 percent in Kansas in 2022.)

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