Only 5 percent of Americans rank abortion as their biggest concern right now, poll finds

Five percent of respondents ranked "abortion" or "reproductive rights" as "the biggest concern facing your family right now" in a new Monmouth poll released Tuesday.

Virginia Kruta, writing for conservative news outlet The Daily Wire, noted that 6 percent answered "I don't know." From this detail, Kruta predicted that, despite heated rhetoric from abortion rights advocates, the issue "won't even move the needle for voters come November."

Inflation was the clear winner, with 33 percent calling it their family's biggest concern at the moment, followed by gas prices (15 percent), the economy (9 percent), and bills and groceries (6 percent).

Still, 5 percent is a significant spike, coming on the heels of the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which returned the abortion issue to the states. Since 2015, the share of respondents ranking abortion as their top concern has remained reliably below 1 percent. Having more than quintupled since the survey was last conducted in Dec. 2021, abortion beat out issues like education, taxes, COVID-19, unemployment, and crime.

Democrats were most concerned about abortion, with 9 percent listing it as their top issue compared to 5 percent of independents and zero percent of Republicans. Among respondents who weren't registered to vote, 13 percent answered abortion or reproductive rights compared to just four percent of registered voters.

The poll surveyed 978 adults between June 23 and June 27 with an error margin of 3.1 percent. When asked about their biggest concern, respondents were not given a list of issues from which to choose.