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Memos & Media Guidance
MEMO: Exit Polls Show Abortion Played a Crucial Role in 2025 Election Victories
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Reproductive Freedom for All
RE: Exit Polls Show Abortion Played a Crucial Role in 2025 Election Victories
DATE: November 13, 2025
Exit Polls Show Abortion Played a Crucial Role in 2025 Election Victories
A new IMPACT Research survey shows that abortion was highly influential in voters’ decision-making for the 2025 election cycle, and proves that abortion and reproductive freedom remain a powerful and galvanizing issue for voters. Reproductive Freedom for All Foundation conducted the exit polls in Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
This research not only adds context to the critical role reproductive freedom played in the sweeping and decisive victories in key 2025 races—it also delivers a blueprint for reaching voters and securing wins ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Data tracking in 2025 from statewide ad spending shows that abortion is being deployed more strategically as an indicator of extremism. In both New Jersey and Virginia, abortion-related ads still account for roughly one in six dollars spent on TV — underscoring the value voters place on candidates who will fight to protect their fundamental rights and freedoms.
Both Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger’s campaigns heavily invested in ads highlighting the threats to abortion access in their states and the extreme anti-abortion records of their opponents—and it paid off. Voters made it clear by electing these champions that they do not want Republican lawmakers to take away their freedoms by controlling their bodies and lives.
Reproductive Freedom For All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju dove into these results with Molly Murphy, President of Impact Research, on the latest episode of our podcast, My Body. My Pod. You can watch and listen here.
Key takeaways from the three surveys:
1. Voters know who is attacking their health and reproductive care, and candidates who aligned themselves with Trump and the GOP’s extreme anti-abortion agenda lost.
- Across these three states, voters had concerns that if the Republican gubernatorial candidates had won, or if the Supreme Court justices had not been retained, their states would see additional restrictions on abortion.
- In Virginia, 69% were concerned Winsome Earle-Sears would roll back access to abortion care and other reproductive health care if elected.
- In New Jersey, 55% of voters were concerned that if Jack Ciattarelli had won, he would have tried to restrict abortion and reproductive freedom in the state.
- In Pennsylvania, 47% were concerned that if the justices had not been retained, the court would have restricted abortion and reproductive freedom.
2. Abortion broke through in the campaigns in all three states.
- Voters heard about the candidates’ positions on abortion ahead of Election Day. In Virginia, 77% heard about Abigail Spanberger’s position on abortion, in Pennsylvania, 73% of voters heard about the justices’ positions on abortion, and in New Jersey, 48% of voters heard about Mikie Sherrill’s position on abortion.
3. Voters saw Earle-Sears and Ciattarelli as more extreme on abortion.
- Voters recognized Earle-Sears and Ciattarelli as extreme anti-abortion candidates who would roll back their rights.
- In Virginia, a majority of voters (72%) say that Earle-Sears’ position on abortion raised some level of concern, with more than a third (36%) saying her abortion views were a very serious concern.
- In New Jersey, 41% of voters expressed serious concerns about Ciattarelli’s position. And, by 21 points, they believed that he had more extreme positions on abortion than Sherrill.
4. Moving into 2026, voters in all three states said they want to see more protections for abortion.
- In Virginia, almost two-thirds of voters statewide support the governor and General Assembly passing a law that would provide more protections for the right to access reproductive healthcare, including abortion.
- In New Jersey, 68% of voters want the governor and state legislature to pass additional protections for abortion care.
- In Pennsylvania, 66% want to see the Supreme Court rule to protect access to reproductive health care, including abortion care.
Beyond support, voters across the states want these actions to be a priority – including 57% of Pennsylvanians, 46% of Virginians, and 43% of New Jerseyans.
Voters sent a clear message this election cycle: reproductive freedom is non-negotiable. Candidates who committed to protecting abortion care and reproductive freedom won, while those who sought to roll back these rights were soundly rejected at the ballot box.
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For over 55 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
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