Politics

(WASHINGTON) — A draft of the SCOTUS decision on the Mississippi case that challenges Roe v. Wade was leaked Monday night, first reported by Politico. According to the copy of the draft opinion for the majority, a majority of justices appear to have voted to effectively overturn the 1973 landmark abortion precedent set in Roe v. Wade.

“Certainly, it’s not a totally leakproof institution, but there has never been a leak even remotely like this,” said ABC News Supreme Court contributor Kate Shaw on ABC News’ podcast “Start Here.” “I don’t think in the history of the Supreme Court, which is the history of the country – it is totally uncharted.”

The 98-page opinion leaked by Politico was written by Justice Samuel Alito, one of the most conservative members of the court.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts addressed the leaked opinion. The statement confirms that the leaked document is “authentic,” but it goes on to say that it “does not represent a decision by the Court of the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

“To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way,” said Roberts in the release.

He also stated that he has launched an official investigation into the source of the leak.

There are multiple theories circulating as to why the document was leaked. According to Shaw, one theory is that whoever leaked the draft may be trying to “lock” in a five-justice majority and the publicity from the leak will deter anyone from “jumping ship.”

“The publicity will deter them from doing so because they will be worried about sending a message that they were somehow cowed into changing their votes by the public blowback and or the public encouragement,” said Shaw.

Also, some believe that if it’s a conservative leak, the approach was used to soften the ground for the ultimate decision. Some conservatives have already pointed out how little attention Texas’ SB8 has gotten now that it’s been in place for months, ABC News’ Devin Dwyer reported.

Another theory is that the leak came from the liberal side of the court.

“I think the logic there would be something like the court is about to take a truly extraordinary step of rolling back this right upon which Americans have relied for a half century and an institution,” said Shaw. “And thus these long standing norms of secrecy and confidentiality actually don’t have to be respected and can be thrown out the window because extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.”

Currently, the leaker has not been identified and the motive remains unknown.

Over the past several months, the Supreme Court has been considering the Mississippi case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health after hearing arguments on December 1. The Mississippi law bans abortions after 15 weeks. The case asks the justices directly to reconsider the precedent set by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

A handful of states have already set so-called “trigger laws,” which are prohibitions set on abortions that will immediately go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overruled.

“At least half the states in the country will severely curtail or totally outlaw access to abortion,” said Shaw. “Basically immediately.”

According to an updated report from The Guttmacher Institute, 26 states have these trigger laws, some of which include bans on abortion after six or eight weeks of pregnancy, effectively banning all abortions. Several other states without trigger laws would also be expected to move quickly to prohibit abortions if Roe is overruled.

But, echoing Justice Roberts, Shaw said that nothing is set in stone.

“This is not a final opinion. It is not the law. Roe v. Wade has not been overturned yet,” said Shaw. “This appears to be a legitimate document that does reflect where the court is at this moment… But we don’t know exactly what the final opinion in this case will look like.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Amid reports of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, an ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that majorities of Americans support upholding Roe, say abortion should be legal in all or most cases and — by a wide margin — see abortion as a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor, not by lawmakers.

The national survey was completed last week, in advance of a report by Politico Monday night that a proposed first draft of an opinion, apparently by Justice Samuel Alito, called for reversing Roe in a case challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

See PDF for full results, charts and tables.

In this poll, by contrast, 57% of Americans oppose a ban after 15 weeks; 58% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases; and 54% say the court should uphold Roe, compared with 28% who say the ruling should be overturned.

Support for upholding Roe is 6 percentage points lower than it was in an ABC/Post poll last November. Preference for reversing it is essentially unchanged; instead, more in this survey express no opinion, 18%.

Moving the question outside a legal framework, 7 in 10 say the decision whether or not a woman can have an abortion should be left to the woman and her doctor; this also is down from November, by 5 points. Twenty-four percent instead say abortion should be regulated by law. Even among those who say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, a substantial share, 41%, also say it should be left to the woman and her doctor.

Trends are not consistent. While support for abortion rights is down slightly in the two items noted above, it’s higher than previously (up 12 points from 2011) “when the woman cannot afford to have a child,” and unchanged in other measures.

Legal or illegal?

Basic views on whether or not abortion should be legal have been more or less stable in polling going back 27 years. The 58% who say it should be legal in all or most cases is very near the average, 56%, in nearly three dozen ABC/Post polls since mid-1995, ranging from 49% to 60%. This includes 26% who now say it should be legal in all cases, exceeding the average, 21%; and 33% who say it should be legal in most cases.

Thirty-seven percent in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, instead say abortion should be illegal in most cases (21%) or all cases (16%). That’s less than the long-term average, 42%, with a range from 36% to 48%. (Five percent have no opinion on this question.)

Circumstances

Considering specific circumstances, substantial majorities say abortion should be legal when the woman’s physical health is endangered (82%), when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest (79%) and when there’s evidence of serious birth defects (67%).

The public divides on another circumstance: When the woman cannot afford to have a child, 48% say abortion should be legal, 45% illegal. Support for legal abortion in this case is its highest in six polls dating back to 1996.

On another front, the poll finds most Americans are unaware of new abortion restrictions in their states. In the 22 states that have passed abortion restrictions since 2020, just 30% of residents are aware that this has occurred; more, 44%, think not, with 26% unsure. An open question is how people who favor legal abortion may react if and when they learn their state has taken a different tack.

State laws

Regarding state-level action, 36% say laws on access to abortion in their state should be left as they are now and 33% say access to abortion should be easier than it is now. Fewer, 25%, say abortion access should be harder than it is currently.

Support for greater restrictions is muted, 30%, even in the 26 states that are reported by the Guttmacher Institute as likely to ban legal abortion if Roe v. Wade were overturned. This shrinks to 21% in other states.

Testing two specific restrictions, almost identical numbers say they’d oppose a law in their state making abortions legal only in the first six weeks of pregnancy (58%) or, as mentioned, only in the first 15 weeks (57%); 36% alike support each prospect. At least 12 states have passed six-week bans (most of which have been struck down or blocked by the courts) and five states have passed 15-week bans, with partial passage in a sixth.

Groups

Sixty-two percent of women and 55% of men say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The gap widens on the shares who say it should be legal in all cases — 33% of women, compared with 19% of men, a wider gap than typical.

Support for legal abortion is highest among liberals (82%), people with no religious preference (80%), Democrats (79%), those with post-graduate degrees (74%) and Northeasterners (72%). It’s lowest among strong conservatives (20%), evangelical Protestants (28%) and Republicans (33%).

As noted, Americans by 54-28% say the Supreme Court should uphold Roe; it’s a similar 51-32% in the states where abortion bans or severe restrictions are anticipated if the ruling were overturned. Among groups, support for overturning Roe reaches a slim majority only among conservatives, 52%. Perhaps surprisingly, support for overturning the precedent reaches only 44% among Republicans and 45% among evangelical Protestants, two of the groups most apt to say abortion should be illegal.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone April 24-28, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,004 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 29-25-40%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates. See details on the survey’s methodology here.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — With the bombshell leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion indicating a reported majority of conservative justices is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, all eyes were once again on Republican Sen. Susan Collins Tuesday over her support for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

The draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito and not yet final — first reported Monday night by Politico — showed the court is poised to topple the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion across the U.S.

In the draft, dated Feb. 10, Alito wrote, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

Reporters flocked to Collins’ office on Tuesday morning for her reaction, given she cast a vote pivotal to Kavanaugh’s ascension to the court in 2018.

Collins said at the time that Kavanaugh assured her Roe v. Wade was “settled law.”

“If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office,” Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement Tuesday morning. “Obviously, we won’t know each Justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were more direct, accusing the court’s recently appointed conservative justices of deceiving lawmakers about their views on Roe v. Wade.

“Several of these conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the American people, have lied to the U.S. Senate, ripped up the Constitution and defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation — all at the expense of tens of millions of women who could soon be stripped of their bodily autonomy and the constitutional rights they’ve relied on for half a century,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a joint statement Monday night.

At his Senate confirmation hearings in September 2018, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee pushed Kavanaugh on what his then-current position on Roe v. Wade was — in light of a reported 2003 email he wrote as a lawyer in the Bush White House challenging that the landmark decision was the “settled law of the land.”

“As a general proposition I understand the importance of the precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade,” Kavanaugh told senators.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.: “What would you say your position is today on a woman’s right to choose?”

“As a judge it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court,” he replied. “By ‘it,’ I mean Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, been affirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent.”

At confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch in March 2017, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois pressed him for his views on abortion, using what he wrote in a book he authored on euthanasia. In the book, he wrote that “the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”

“The Supreme Court of the United States has held that Roe v. Wade, that a fetus is not a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment. And the book explains that,” Gorsuch testified.

“Do you accept that?” Durbin asked.

“That’s the law of the land, I accept the law of the land, senator, yes,” Gorsuch answered.

Schumer, speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, vowed to hold a vote on codifying abortion rights, although the path forward for Democrats on the issue remains limited due to not having enough vote overcome a filibuster.

The House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify abortion rights in September 2021 but the bill has failed to move forward in the Senate.

“A vote on this legislation is not an abstract exercise,” Schumer said. “This is as urgent and real as it gets. We will vote to protect a woman’s right to choose and every American is going to see which side every Senator stands.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Republican who is a leading abortion rights moderate, excoriated the leak, calling it “absolutely reprehensible,” but added, “If it goes in the direction that this leaked copy has indicated, I will just tell you that it it it rocks my confidence in the court right now.”

The senator batted away questions about whether she would support ending the Senate’s filibuster in order to codify Roe, legislation she has sponsored, but she didn’t rule it out, saying only, “I’m not going to talk about the filibuster.”

Asked directly if previous conservative nominees like Kavanaugh had lied to her when they affirmed that Roe is “settled law,” Murkowski repeated that the draft opinion has “rocked my confidence in the court.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden weighed in Tuesday morning on the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion showing the panel’s conservative majority of justices is poised to overturn nearly 50 years of established abortion rights in America.

“It concerns me a great deal that, after 50 years, we’re going to decide that a woman doesn’t have the right to choose,” Biden told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, en route to Alabama to visit a facility that manufactures Javelin anti-tank missiles. “But even more equally profound is the rationale used — and it would mean that every other decision relating to the notion of privacy is thrown into question.”

“The idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child, based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think goes way overboard,” he said.

Biden called the decision “radical” if it holds, and added, “The codification of Roe makes a lot of sense.”

In an earlier written statement, Biden began with a caveat — lightly acknowledging the unprecedented nature of seeing a draft opinion before the court’s formal ruling — before launching into a three-part defense of Roe v. Wade by his administration.

“We do not know whether this draft is genuine, or whether it reflects the final decision of the Court. With that critical caveat, I want to be clear on three points about the cases before the Supreme Court,” Biden said in a rare statement on an even rarer event.

“First, my administration argued strongly before the Court in defense of Roe v. Wade,” Biden said, referencing oral arguments in December before the justices. “We said that Roe is based on “a long line of precedent recognizing ‘the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty’… against government interference with intensely personal decisions.”

“I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned,” Biden said.

He said his administration was already preparing for the outcome — but called on American voters to elect pro-choice candidates in November and on congressional lawmakers to codify Roe into law.

“Second, shortly after the enactment of Texas law SB 8 and other laws restricting women’s reproductive rights, I directed my Gender Policy Council and White House Counsel’s Office to prepare options for an Administration response to the continued attack on abortion and reproductive rights, under a variety of possible outcomes in the cases pending before the Supreme Court. We will be ready when any ruling is issued,” he continued.

“Third, if the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November,” he said. “At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”

The court has since acknowledged the draft is “authentic” but said it was not a decision of the court and not final.

The document, which Politico said Monday night it obtained from a “person familiar with the court’s proceedings,” is marked “first draft” and dated Feb. 10, 2022 — two months after oral arguments were heard in the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, the draft opinion’s author, in a copy posted online.

If Alito’s opinion were to hold, as written, it would dramatically upend abortion rights across America, effectively allowing each state to set its own policy.

“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” the draft concludes. “Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”

The stunning leak comes as Tuesday marks the first multi-state contest of the 2022 midterm election season and as several states have already enacted restrictions on abortion rights.

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts put out rare, written statements Tuesday to address the leak of a draft opinion showing the panel’s conservative majority of justices is poised to overturn nearly 50 years of established abortion rights.

The statement on behalf of the court said, “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

In a separate statement but released together, Roberts called the leak a “singular and egregious breach” of trust — but defended the court’s workforce and integrity, saying this will not undermine its operation.

“To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way,” Roberts said.

“We at the Court are blessed to have a workforce — permanent employees and law clerks alike — intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law. Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court,” he said. “This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.”

Roberts said he’s directed the Marshal of the Court — its chief operations and security officer — to launch an investigation into the leak.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Politicians and organizations are reacting to an unprecedented leaked draft opinion suggesting the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide nearly 50 years ago.

While some conservatives were quick to praise the draft opinion, many liberals decried it and people on both sides criticized the extraordinary breach of the covert deliberation process of the nation’s highest court.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a joint statement late Monday, warning: “If the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years — not just on women but on all Americans.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., however, had not commented as of Tuesday morning.

The 98-page document, obtained by Politico and published online Monday night, was dated Feb. 10, 2022, and labeled a “1st Draft” of the “Opinion of the Court” in a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which is challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks.

Politico said it received “a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document.” ABC News has not independently confirmed the draft. A Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to comment.

The draft opinion, apparently written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., appears to show the court’s conservative majority voted to strike down the 1973 ruling on Roe v. Wade as well as a subsequent decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. That 1992 case upheld Roe’s finding of a constitutional right to abortion services but allowed states to impose some restrictions on the controversial practice. The immediate impact of the ruling as drafted would be to end the federally guaranteed right to abortion and effectively allow each state to decide whether to restrict or outright ban it, according to Politico.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito appeared to write in the draft opinion.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he added. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

In the wake of the Politico report and the rare leak, elected officials from both sides of the aisle are speaking out.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., along with a number of congressional Democrats, including Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Patty Murray, D-Wash., as well as Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., all called for Congress to codify Roe v. Wade into law, even if that meant eliminating the filibuster.

    If #SCOTUS is going to legislate from the bench and turn back the clock 50 years on #RoeVWade, then the Senate needs to pass my Women’s Health Protection Act, and if we need to eliminate the filibuster to get it done, we should do that too. #WHPA
    — Sen. Tammy Baldwin (@SenatorBaldwin) May 3, 2022

    We need to fight back with everything we’ve got right now. The right to abortion is on the line, and I’ll never stop fighting to protect it.
    — Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) May 3, 2022

    We must fight. We fight by passing the House-passed Women’s Health Protection Act in the Senate. We fight by getting rid of the filibuster. We can’t go back, we must fight. https://t.co/w1ysGzDrAh
    — Rep. Peter Welch (@WelchForVT) May 3, 2022

Gubernatorial Democrats from California to Maine vowed to protect abortion rights in their respective states.

    Our daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers will not be silenced.The world is about to hear their fury.California will not sit back. We are going to fight like hell. https://t.co/EhwSWXiZhx
    — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) May 3, 2022

    Hell no! In Illinois, we trust women. We cannot let their most profound and personal rights be violated. https://t.co/ksvR0vkgw1
    — Governor JB Pritzker (@GovPritzker) May 3, 2022

    I want to be very clear: unlike an apparent majority of the Supreme Court, I do not consider the rights of women to be dispensable. As long as I am Governor, I will fight with everything I have to protect reproductive rights and to preserve access to reproductive health care. https://t.co/RYSnxxJVb9
    — Governor Janet Mills (@GovJanetMills) May 3, 2022

While the co-chairs of the House Pro-Life Caucus had not commented as of Tuesday morning, the leaders of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Co.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), released a joint statement, saying: “Such a move would be an unconscionable rollback of a fundamental right and would have devastating impacts throughout the country.”

Some Republicans, including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), condemned the leak as an attempt to “intimidate” the court, while others, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), hailed the draft opinion.

    The Supreme Court’s confidential deliberation process is sacred & protects it from political interference. This breach shows that radical Democrats are working even harder to intimidate & undermine the Court. It was always their plan. The justices cannot be swayed by this attack. https://t.co/S5eMGO0dxd
    — Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) May 3, 2022

    The Supreme Court is preparing to overturn Roe—the most significant and glorious news of our lifetime. Join me in praying to God for the right outcome. Life begins at conception. Let’s protect it. pic.twitter.com/SNdb6WUBXO
    — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) May 3, 2022

    If the reports are true about the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming decision, this is a major victory for the pro-life movement.My full statement⬇️https://t.co/QDcy5kyw9K
    — Rep. Mike Kelly (@MikeKellyPA) May 3, 2022

Gubernatorial Republicans in Alabama, Arkansas and South Dakota expressed their hope that Roe v. Wade would in fact be overturned.

    I have advocated for the reversal of Roe v. Wade all my political career. The leak from someone within the court is reprehensible and should lead to an investigation but I do hope the court returns authority to the states.
    — Gov. Asa Hutchinson (@AsaHutchinson) May 3, 2022

    If this report is true and Roe v. Wade is overturned, I will immediately call for a special session to save lives and guarantee that every unborn child has a right to life in South Dakota. https://t.co/oIiGibCP7B
    — Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) May 3, 2022

Meanwhile, anti-abortion organizations March for Life and Susan B Anthony List are withholding comment until the final decision is announced; though the latter noted that it would “wholeheartedly applaud the decision” if the leaked draft opinion was the final opinion.

    Friends, @March_for_Life will not be providing comment on an official decision of #scotus possible leak until a decision is officially announced.
    — Jeanne F. Mancini (@jeannemfl) May 3, 2022

    Regarding the SCOTUS leak on Dobbs, SBA List will not be commenting until an official decision is announced by the Court.
    — Susan B. Anthony List #ModernizeOurLaw (@SBAList) May 3, 2022

Abortion-rights organizations Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America emphasized that the leaked draft opinion “is not final” and “abortion is still legal.”

    Let’s be clear: This is a draft opinion. It’s outrageous, it’s unprecedented, but it is not final. Abortion is your right — and it is STILL LEGAL. https://t.co/s9R7w99n71
    — Planned Parenthood (@PPFA) May 3, 2022

    The leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is not final. While this leak is unprecedented, it’s important to know that Roe still stands and abortion is still legal. But it’s clear that we need to fight harder than ever before.
    — NARAL (@NARAL) May 3, 2022

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Six in 10 Republicans back former President Donald Trump as their party’s leader, slightly more than the share of Democrats who line up behind President Joe Biden’s leadership of their party — a sign of Trump’s lasting strength in his party as the midterm primary season revs up.

Nearly a year and a half after he left the presidency, Trump’s influence is extensive, albeit not monolithic: 60% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the GOP should follow his leadership, while 34% prefer a new direction.

See PDF for full results, charts and tables.

Notably, that slightly exceeds backing for Biden’s leadership within his party, 53-38% in this ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Support for Trump within the GOP, moreover, has held up since he left office: The 60% who favor his leadership now is essentially the same as it was in an ABC/Post poll in mid-January 2021, 57%, shortly after Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. That said, it’s down from 76% in a similar question in February 2018.

Indiana and Ohio go to the polls Tuesday and the spring/summer midterm primary season accelerates from here, with a dozen primaries and a runoff this month. Tuesday’s most-watched race pits Trump-endorsed candidate J.D. Vance in the Ohio Republican primary for U.S. Senate against several other front-runners who likewise have sought to embrace Trumpism.

Jan. 6

Trump holds intra-party support even as a slim majority overall continues to favor charging him with a crime related to the Capitol riot. At the same time, the public divides evenly on the work of the House committee investigating the incident.

Americans split 40-40% on whether the committee is or is not conducting a fair and impartial investigation of the riot; a substantial 20% have no opinion in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. Partisan divisions on the question are sharp.

More overall, 52%, say Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the riot. That’s similar to results just a week after the attack, when 54% said he should be charged specifically with inciting a riot. Notably, nearly a quarter of those who think Trump should be charged with a crime don’t see the House committee’s investigation as fair and impartial.

Partisans

Evaluations of the House committee’s investigation of the riot divide along party lines. Sixty-eight percent of Democrats think the committee is conducting a fair and impartial investigation; a similar seven in 10 Republicans say it’s not doing so. Independents are split, 39-38%.

Trump-aligned Republicans and Republican leaners — those who say the party should follow his leadership — are among the least apt to see the committee as fair and impartial, with just 10% saying so. That rises to 27% of those who’d prefer GOP leaders go another way.

On the Democrats’ side, those less wed to Biden’s leadership are far less apt to see a fair and impartial investigation, 48% vs. 78% among those backing his direction.

Trump Republicans and Biden Democrats

Beyond the riot, opinions on the standard-bearers split each party along demographic and attitudinal lines.

Trump-aligned Republicans and Republican leaners tend to be older and more conservative than those who’d like the GOP to take a different direction. Six in 10 Trump Republicans are 50 and older, compared with 39% of their counterparts. Sixty-nine percent of Trump Republicans identify as conservatives, including 39% as strong conservatives. That falls to 46% conservatives, and 15% strong conservatives, among those who’d have party leaders follow a different path.

Most in both groups disapprove of Biden’s performance in office, but strong disapproval is significantly more intense among Trump Republicans, 93%, vs. 63% among other Republicans and GOP leaners, one in five of whom in fact approves of Biden’s work.

Age gaps on the Democratic side are more dramatic: Just 20% of Biden-aligned Democrats are younger than 35, compared with 52% of those who’d like to see the party move away from the president. In addition to being older, Biden Democrats are more likely to be moderates, have higher incomes and be more educated than other Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

Those demographic differences align with a major rift on economic issues between the two. Just 46% of those who want to see the party move in a different direction approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, compared with 81% of Biden Democrats. Biden Democrats also are more apt to say good jobs are available in their community, and are far less apt to express upset about inflation.

Ultimately, Trump Republicans and Biden Democrats share a characteristic that suggests they’ll continue to hold sway: They’re both more likely than others to be registered to vote and to say they’re certain to vote in November.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone April 24-28, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,004 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 29-25-40%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates. See details on the survey’s methodology here.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Ohioans head to the polls Tuesday to vote in Democratic and Republican primaries, featuring multiple hotly contested races, including battles for governor, secretary of state and U.S. Senate.

The race to replace Sen. Rob Portman, who is retiring, features a crowded Republican primary in which former President Donald Trump’s endorsement powers will be tested.

In the GOP Senate primary, almost all the candidates have centered their campaigns around being a Trump conservative. But it was a “never-Trumper” turned Trump ally, J.D. Vance, who scored Trump’s coveted endorsement, upending the race.

In the days leading up to the Ohio primary, Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group backing Republican candidate and former Ohio treasurer Josh Mandel, released an ad attacking Vance and questioning Trump’s endorsement of him.

The ad features previous comments from Vance criticizing Trump supporters by saying they voted for the former president for racist reasons.

Other notable Republicans vying for the nomination include Mike Gibbons, a wealthy businessman, Jane Timken, former chairwoman of the Ohio GOP, and Ohio state Sen. Matt Dolan.

Unlike his opponents, Dolan has distanced himself from Trump, saying his campaign is focused on Ohioans and that Republicans focusing on the results of the 2020 election are taking the wrong approach.

On the other side of the aisle, three candidates are running in the House Democratic primary. Rep. Tim Ryan, who briefly ran for president in 2020 and has long represented the working class Youngstown area, is the clear frontrunner. The other candidates in the race are Traci Johnson and Morgan Harper.

In the GOP gubernatorial primary, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who is seeking a second term, is favored to win. He faces a spirited faceoff with members of his own party who were disappointed with his relatively strict response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Republicans looking to replace DeWine include former U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, former state Rep. Ron Hood and Joe Blystone, a farmer who jumped into the race. Trump has not endorsed in the contest, but Renacci has campaigned on Trumpism and has cited Trump’s support of him in 2018 during his failed campaign for Senate.

Ohio’s secretary of state race has received more attention than in previous election cycles. A greater focus has been placed on the top election position of overseeing and validating election results following the 2020 election. ​​Ohio GOP Secretary of State Frank LaRose faces a primary challenger in John Adams. Adams has expressed unfounded doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election results, whereas LaRose has danced around the issue.

LaRose acknowledged President Joe Biden as the legitimate president, but his campaign borrows Trump’s rhetoric of “protecting elections,” and LaRose has campaigned on fighting voter fraud despite no evidence it is a widespread problem. Trump endorsed LaRose and is considered likely to win and continue on to the general election.

Multiple House races will play out throughout the state Tuesday but the rematch between Rep. Shontel Brown and Nina Turner for Ohio’s 11th Congressional District will be one of the most closely watched of the night. Brown was first elected in a special election following Marcia Fudge’s appointment to serve as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Brown and Turner’s rematch is viewed as a reflection of the divisions between the Democratic Party’s progressive and establishment wings. Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have endorsed Turner. Biden, however, endorsed Brown on Friday, calling her “an ardent advocate for the people of Ohio and a true partner in Congress.”

Turner and Brown approached the campaign trail from different ends of the Democratic political spectrum. Turner, a former co-chairwoman of Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has heavily criticized the Democratic Party and Biden in the past and her previous loss to Brown was seen as a win for the Democratic establishment. On Monday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading left-wing voice, threw her support behind Turner.

Over 100,000 votes have already been cast statewide, and 182,000 absentee ballots had been requested as of the end of early voting on April 22, according to LaRose.

“As I’ve visited county boards of elections this month during early voting and spoken with voters, what I’ve seen firsthand are the high standards of accessibility and security which make our state a national model,” the secretary of state said in a statement reporting early voting numbers.

Due to an ongoing redistricting litigation battle still playing out in the state, Tuesday’s primary in Ohio will not feature legislative races for the state House or Senate. Voters will cast ballots for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor, U.S. House and U.S. Senate. A second primary will be held for legislative races, though no date has been set, according to LaRose’s office.

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(WASHINGTON) — The parents of Austin Tice, an American journalist and Marine Corps veteran abducted in Syria, have already been waiting almost a decade for their son to return home. After a public plea for support over the weekend, President Joe Biden wasted no time, saying on Monday he would meet with them “today.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki provided more details on the meeting after it took place, saying in a statement that “the president reiterated his commitment to continue to work through all available avenues to secure Austin’s long overdue return to his family.”

Psaki added that Biden’s national security team “will remain in regular contact” with the Tice family, as well as the families of other hostages.

The heightened attention to Tice’s case comes after the head of the White House Correspondents’ Association paid tribute to him during the group’s annual dinner on Saturday, asking his mother to stand and be acknowledged as the president looked on.

Later in the evening, during his own remarks, Biden said that he would like to meet with her and Tice’s father.

“After the President made those comments, obviously we went into action to work to set up the meeting on Sunday and see if Debra and Mark Tice — Austin’s parents — would be available,” Psaki said during a briefing.

That high-profile moment at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner took place just days after Trevor Reed, an American and former Marine held captive in Russia for nearly two years, was freed as part of an international prisoner exchange –a deal that fell into place weeks after Reed’s parents had a White House meeting with the president of their own.

The Tices have previously met with National Security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but Psaki called the audience with Biden “an additional and more significant step.”

State Department Spokesperson Ned Price added that the meeting was a testament to the administration’s commitment to bring Tice back home, adding “he has been away from his family for far too long, and we’re doing everything we can to see that comes to a successful conclusion.”

But Tice’s imprisonment poses unique challenges. Reed’s release was the result of months of intense negotiations within Moscow. But the U.S. has not had a formal diplomatic relationship with Syria since the onset of the country’s civil war in 2012 — something Tice’s mother has voiced frustration over in prior interviews.

Despite that complication, Price said the U.S. could still secure Tice’s freedom.

“You didn’t hear us share the details of those consultations before [Trevor Reed] was released. We do believe that we can best and most effectively achieve potentially successful outcomes if we do have space to conduct private conversations,” Price said. “We of course don’t have, I would say, fully normal relations with Moscow at this time and yet we were able to have a discrete, focused set of discussions regarding the effort to free Trevor Reed that ultimately were successful.”

Tice disappeared in 2012 while covering the Free Syrian Army, a group of Syrian military officials who had joined the opposition against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A month later, a video was released showing him blindfolded, removed from a car and led by armed men up a hill, saying “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been publicly heard from since.

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading directly to the safe location, recovery and return of Tice.

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(WASHINGTON) — An apparent draft Supreme Court opinion obtained by Politico shows the panel’s conservative majority of justices is ready to overturn nearly 50 years of established abortion rights precedent since Roe v. Wade.

The document, which Politico said it obtained from a “person familiar with the court’s proceedings,” is marked “first draft” and dated Feb. 10, 2022 — two months after oral arguments were heard in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. ABC News has not independently confirmed the draft.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” writes Justice Samuel Alito, the opinion’s apparent author, in a copy of the draft posted online.

The leak is an extraordinary breach of Supreme Court protocol and tradition. Never before has such a consequential draft opinion been leaked to the public before publication.

Reached by ABC News, a Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to comment.

The Dobbs case involves Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy — well before fetal viability, the longstanding dividing line established by the court before which states cannot restrict a woman’s access to the procedure.

During arguments in December, five of the justices hinted that they were ready to do away with the “viability standard” established by Roe and a subsequent 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

An unnamed source familiar with the deliberations told Politico that Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all initially supported a ruling siding with Mississippi and “that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.”

The drafting of Supreme Court opinions, however, is a fluid and dynamic process, sources familiar with the internal operations have told ABC News. The document posted suggests a majority of justices is likely to side with Mississippi, but how broad a ruling will ultimately come down remains unclear.

Chief Justice John Roberts famously changed his vote late during deliberations over the Affordable Care Act in 2012, narrowly saving the law from being struck down. A Wall Street Journal editorial this month suggested that Roberts, who reveres established precedent and the court’s reputation, may be trying to convince one of his conservative colleagues to join him in a narrower opinion.

If Alito’s opinion were to hold, as written, it would dramatically upend abortion rights across America, effectively allowing each state to set its own policy.

“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion,” the draft concludes. “Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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