KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has established a double digit lead in the U.S. Senate race against Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine, according to a new poll from Saint Louis University.
But the polling also shows that a majority of Missourians support some form of legal access to abortion, a possible obstacle for Schmitt, a Republican who played a key role in triggering the state’s near-total abortion ban in June.
While Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Missouri since 2012, the issue of abortion rights — and Schmitt’s decision to enact the ban minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — potentially offers a small opening for Busch Valentine in the general election.
The poll released Friday by Saint Louis University and British pollster YouGov found that 49% of those surveyed supported Schmitt, while 38% of respondents favored Busch Valentine.
The survey of 900 likely Missouri voters was conducted between Aug. 8 and 16. It has a margin of error of 3.75%. The poll asked voters to weigh in on the Senate race and a host of other issues, including the state’s abortion ban.
While the poll showed Schmitt has a strong lead in the race, a majority of respondents were in favor of some level of legal abortion and disagreed with the state’s ban on abortion.
It found that 58% of those surveyed supported a woman’s right to an abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy compared to 32% who disagreed. It also showed that 75% of respondents agreed that a women should be able to get an abortion in a cases of rape and 79% supported abortions in cases of incest.
The state’s abortion ban does not include exceptions for rape or incest, making Missouri one of a dozen states with trigger laws that don’t allow abortions in those circumstances. Only a single exception, for medical emergencies, was included.
The poll results also show that a plurality of 48% would support a ballot initiative to reverse the ban, a figure that could boost Democrats’ hopes that abortion rights could be restored at the ballot box in the future.
Steve Rogers, an associate professor of political science at Saint Louis University who directed the poll, said he was surprised by the percentage of Missourians who supported some form of abortion rights.
“I’ve seen Missouri kind of shift from more of a purplish state to a pretty solidly red state and not all that lined up necessarily with the abortion position,” he said. “It just kind of reflects that there are a lot of Missourians who may have positions that don’t comport with who is in power necessarily within Missouri or the federal government.”
Busch Valentine, a nurse and heir to the Anheuser-Busch fortune, has highlighted Schmitt’s hard-line position amid statewide backlash against the abortion ban, which outlaws the procedure in all cases except for medical emergencies. Abortion rights are likely to be a potent issue in November, even in a Republican-leaning state like Missouri.
Voters in bordering Kansas strongly rejected an anti-abortion amendment earlier this month by 59% to 41%, a result seized on nationally by Democrats who hope it’s a sign the issue will carry the party through November with its congressional majorities intact. But the Missouri poll indicates that support for abortion rights doesn’t necessarily indicate a voter will cast a ballot for a Democrat in the fall.
Rogers, the director of the poll, said just over 34% of Schmitt supporters agreed that abortion should be legal in the first eight weeks of pregnancy, while 52% said they disagreed.
Schmitt has tied Busch Valentine to President Joe Biden, who is struggling with poor approval ratings, as well as the highest inflation in decades, which is raising prices across the country.
The poll found that 49% of the 900 Missouri voters surveyed strongly disapproved of the way President Joe Biden is doing his job, while 24% approved and 12% strongly approved.
Robynn Kuhlmann, an associate professor of American politics and research methods at the University of Central Missouri, said Thursday that Missouri’s abortion ban represents a mismatch between public policy and what most people, even Republicans, think should be in place.
“Policy incongruence is essentially when the state policies don’t necessarily match the public’s stance,” she said. “So an outright ban on abortion would mean that it ignores the plurality of individuals in the state of Missouri that believe that there should be some exceptions.”
Kuhlmann said abortion rights could energize some voters and reduce the wide gap between Busch Valentine and Schmitt. However, she said she does not expect a large swath of Republicans to cross party lines and support Busch Valentine over the issue.
“It may be a closer race than projected because of the issue of abortion,” she said. “But at the same time, when you have issues that have been a constant call to conservatism, like gender identity, like, for example, having more parental control over schools, less federal government in your lives, all that kind of stuff… Those may be the issues that override some of the concerns over abortion.”
Busch Valentine, an adamant supporter of abortion rights, this week called on Schmitt and the GOP-controlled Missouri legislature to clarify whether the state’s abortion ban protects birth control, miscarriage treatment and healthcare for rape victims.
The statement demonstrates that Busch Valentine plans to highlight Schmitt’s role in the ban in the lead-up to the general election.
“Missouri’s abortion ban is so extreme that it could force rape victims, even young children, to give birth. It has also caused confusion and chaos for hospitals that provide miscarriage care and emergency contraception,” Busch Valentine said in a statement Wednesday.
“I join the ongoing calls from elected leaders across the state seeking clarity on this important issue. We deserve to know whether miscarriage treatment, emergency contraception, and abortions for young rape victims can be criminalized under this vague law.”
Schmitt campaign spokesman Rich Chrismer, in response, tied Busch Valentine to the Biden administration and attacked The Star for asking for a response to her statement.
“Heiress Trudy Busch Valentine is doing everything she can to distract from her support of Biden’s reckless and socialist policies, and it is sad that the KC Star is carrying her water. Missouri is a pro-life state, and Eric Schmitt is the only pro-life candidate in this race,” the statement said.
The poll showed that 51% of those surveyed felt that the economy should be the state’s top priority. The next closest priorities were health care at 16% and infrastructure at 14%.
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(The Star’s Jonathan Shorman contributed to this report.)
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