CNN —
According to the preliminary results of CNN’s Ohio exit poll, a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters in Ohio who turned out for Tuesday’s election are still feeling the sting.
Negative feelings about the decision are expressed by roughly 6 in 10 voters, similar to sentiments among midterm voters in Ohio last year. About 4 in 10 voters call themselves outright angry about it, approximately double the share of those who are enthusiastic about the court’s 2022 decision. Around 45% of female voters claim they’re angry, compared with about a third of male voters.
Two measures, Issue 1 and Issue 2, are on the ballot in this election in Ohio. Issue 1 would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution, while Issue 2 would create a new law legalizing and regulating recreational marijuana.
The Ohio electorate turning out for the vote largely favors legal abortion – roughly 3 in 10 say the procedure should be legal in all cases and about a third that it should be legal in most cases, similar to the 2022 electorate.
Notably, while Democrats lead Republicans when it comes to which party voters trust to handle abortion, it’s by only a single-digit margin. About 3 in 10 say it should be legal in all cases, and about one-tenth that it should never be legal, but the majority of the electorate stands somewhere in between.
Voters who turned out in favor of Issue 1 (and voted “yes”) hold strong views on abortion and Roe, more so than those who turned out in opposition (and voted “no”).
The Ohio CNN Exit Poll is a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and early in-person voters, along with telephone and online polls measuring the views of absentee by-mail and early voters. It was conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.
This story has been updated with additional information.
