Red flag for Republicans: Independent women at odds with GOP on abortion, LGBTQ rights

Republicans have a problem brewing with women.

A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll finds that independent women are increasingly at odds with the GOP on cultural issues such as banning abortion and opposing LGBTQ rights. That creates a risky situation for the Republican Party among one of the nation's most crucial groups of swing voters.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the leading challenger to Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, especially lags among both independent and Republican women in the primaries against Trump and in the general election against President Joe Biden.

"In 2022, independent women were the reason so many Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate won and prevented a red wave," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center. "Republicans haven't quite figured out a solution to this statistical dilemma."

The national poll of 1,000 registered voters taken June 5-9 by landline and cellphone has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The subsamples of 295 Republicans and 289 independents have error margins of 5.7 and 5.8 points.

The disconnect between the Republican Party and independent women could be exacerbated as GOP governors and state legislatures continue to pursue laws restricting abortion access and targeting transgender rights. And the presidential candidates' efforts to rally support among conservatives in the primaries could undermine their appeal to more moderate voters in the general election.

Here's what we found.

Exclusive: Support for legal abortion rises a year after Roe v. Wade overturned-Poll

DeSantis and Trump have opposite gender gaps

Among voters who plan to vote in Republican primaries or caucuses, Trump does better among women than men, 55% compared with 44%.

For DeSantis, it's the reverse; he's backed by 26% of men and 17% of women. The Florida governor has generated headlines by signing legislation to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and to limit teaching about gender identity in public schools, a measure opponents have dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

In a prospective contest against Biden, both Republican contenders do better among men than women. Male voters split 37%-29% for Trump over Biden; female voters split 38%-27% for Biden over Trump. Overall, the Democratic incumbent leads his predecessor in the White House by a whisker, 34%-32%.

Biden leads DeSantis by a more significant 33%-26% − a wider edge because of the governor's weaker standing among women.

"DeSantis can't expect to win the GOP nomination or the presidency by being just a guy's guy," Paleologos said.

Against Biden, DeSantis does as well as Trump among men, 36%-28%. But he trails the president by 20 percentage points among women, 37%-17%. In the head-to-head, DeSantis barely won a majority of Republican women, at 54%, and he was backed by just 11% of independent women. One in 4 independent women supported Biden.

In a sign of their dissatisfaction with their choices, 40% of independent women said they would support a third-party candidate in a Biden-Trump contest and 44% in a Biden-DeSantis contest.

Trump's legal problems a peril among independent women

Among Republicans, women were a bit less likely than men to care about Trump's courtroom travails, which now include a federal indictment on charges of mishandling sensitive government documents and New York state charges related to alleged payment of hush money to a porn star. Sixty-four percent of GOP women and 61% of GOP men said his legal struggles had no effect on their vote.

But most independent women, 57%, said his legal problems made them less likely to vote for him, as did 48% of independent men.

More indictments could follow. Trump is still the subject of a federal investigation into his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and a Georgia investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the state's election returns.

One year later, the Dobbs decision reverberates

One year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 28% of independent women said they have become more supportive of abortion rights; just 5% said they had become less supportive.

They comprise one of the demographic groups that reported the biggest shift in views.

By more than 3-1, 68%-20%, independent women opposed the Dobbs decision, which reversed recognition of abortion as a constitutionally protected right. Seventy-five percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 85% said abortion would be either the most important or one of the most important issues determining their vote.

LGBTQ rights at issue

A majority of Americans, 53%-43%, said support of LGBTQ rights was very or somewhat important to them in determining their vote in 2024.

That's not true of Republicans: 54% said it was "not at all important" to them, and another 16% called it "not very important."

But 59% of women called LGBTQ rights important to their vote, including nearly two-thirds of independent women, 63%.

The issue has emerged nationwide amid proposals involving transgender people, including measures restricting gender-affirming health care for minors and others. The American Civil Liberties Union calculates that more than two dozen bills targeting transgender rights have become law in 14 states this year.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Independent women at odds with GOP on abortion, LGBTQ rights