More Americans now hold absolutist positions, supporting legal access to abortion in all or most cases and opposing government regulation altogether.

It’s been four years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion.

In the immediate aftermath of the decision, national attention centered on implementation of state bans and a rapidly shifting legal landscape.

One of the most impactful developments over the past few years has been less visible: a significant, sustained, and politically consequential shift in public opinion. In the wake of Dobbs, the debate over abortion rights did not simply return to the states. It fundamentally altered how many Americans think about the issue and how they vote.

In our recently-published book, Not Going Back: Public Opinion on Abortion in Post-Dobbs America, we examined how and why these changes have occurred, and what they mean for U.S. politics. We believe the shift could have real consequences for the November 2026 midterms.

Drawing on several nationally representative surveys conducted before and after Dobbs, we examined how abortion attitudes, political priorities, and voting behavior have changed in response to the most significant shift in abortion policy in half a century.

For nearly 50 years after Roe, public opinion on abortion was remarkably stable. In 1975, Gallup found support for legal abortion in certain circumstances at 54 percent and support for a ban in all circumstances at 22 percent. In 2021—the year before the Dobbs decision—these figures were virtually the same: 48 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

Despite heated political rhetoric, in other words, most Americans held nuanced views. They were neither fully anti-abortion nor fully pro-abortion. Instead, they supported legal abortion in some circumstances and not in others.

That relative stability shaped both policy and politics for decades. Republicans were able to rally a committed core of supporters around........

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