Young pro-lifers pick Trump in straw poll

At the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C., the day after this year’s March for Life, Liberty University online student Becky Bucher scanned a QR code on the back of the event program and took a poll on her phone. The 23-year-old, also a remote employee at the pregnancy help organization Let Them Live, was one of roughly 2,000 attendees—mostly young adults active in the pro-life movement—that Students for Life of America said attended the group’s all-day event on Jan. 20. Every attendee could cast a vote for their preferred presidential and vice presidential candidates in the informal poll.

Bucher picked former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. “In my opinion, when Trump was president, he was the most pro-life president we’ve had,” said Bucher.

She was among the 50.1 percent of nearly 800 respondents who selected Trump in that day’s straw poll—up from 19.22 percent in a similar straw poll from the year before. Trump came ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won just under 35 percent of the votes, down from nearly 54 percent in 2023. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley came in third with 9 percent support. Among the options for running mate, Pence topped the list with 36 percent of votes.

The poll results suggest that young pro-life voters are still committed to the administration that contributed to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Students for Life leadership says the continued support shows confidence in Trump’s ability to follow through with pro-life promises. But some young voters who attended the event said the poll results suggest a lack of knowledge among some pro-lifers about Trump’s personal positions on the abortion issue.

At a town hall in Iowa 10 days before the summit, Trump said he was proud of his part in overturning Roe v. Wade but then implied that the abortion issue may have caused Republican losses.

“If you talk five or six weeks, a lot of women don’t know if they’re pregnant in five or six weeks,” Trump added, referencing laws that protect babies from abortion when they have a detectable heartbeat. “I want to get something where people are happy. You know, this has been tearing the country apart for 50 years, nobody’s been able to do anything. … So we’re going to come up with something that people want and people like.”

After Trump made similar comments in a September interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Students for Life Action released an open letter asking the former president to clarify his position. The pro-life political organization also sent a group to protest a Trump rally in Florida. They held signs that said, “Make Trump Pro-life Again.”

Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life, attributed some of Trump’s comments to the “heat of the moment in a campaign.” She said she believes people think Trump will stay true to his previous pro-life commitments. “We do see him as a fighter, a person who’s been a fighter for life, and we hope will be a fighter for life in the future,” she said. And, to her, the poll results at the summit show young pro-lifers believe that.

Bucher, who voted for Trump in the Students for Life straw poll, knew of Trump’s statements about finding middle ground on abortion. But she said that wasn’t on her mind when she took the poll at the summit. If it had been, she said it might have changed her vote. Bucher said she grew up believing that a presidential candidate is questionable if he does not believe abortion should be abolished and that life has absolute value.

“Since he had played a part in overturning Roe v. Wade, I don’t understand how he could then say, ‘Oh, I’m going to try to find a compromise, a happy middle ground for everyone,’” said Bucher. “Because when it comes to abortion, I feel like … there’s no compromise with that. It’s either you’re for it, or you’re against it.”

Omarr Peters, a 26-year-old former Students for Life employee who also attended the summit, did not vote for Trump in the straw poll. He was among the 6 percent who selected “other.” He voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election because he was pleased with the nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. But Peters stopped supporting Trump after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Peters believes Trump incited the events of the day.

He called Trump’s partnership with the pro-life movement a “marriage of convenience.” Peters cited Trump’s history of pro-abortion statements—especially before the 2016 election—as evidence that his shift to the pro-life side was ingenuine. To him, Trump doesn’t deserve the label of the most pro-life president.

Peters said the results of the straw poll still didn’t surprise him, given Trump’s part in the appointment of pro-life Supreme Court justices.

“I feel like an engaged citizen would probably not give their proxy to Mr. Trump to become the president, unless you just love Mr. Trump,” said Peters. He said he will vote third party or write in a candidate if Trump is the Republican nominee in November.

“I don’t know how many students or people in that room really were thinking very consciously about what they were choosing,” said Claire Seevers, a 20-year-old from North Carolina and a co-worker of Bucher’s who also attended the summit.

She thinks that Pence’s appearance at the event may have influenced some of the votes. In announcing Pence’s appearance, Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins called the Trump-Pence administration “proudly pro-life” and praised its role in overturning Roe. “Trump-Pence was, like, on everyone’s minds,” Seevers said. “So I feel like that might have played into the spike in the choice of Trump.”

But Seevers did not participate in the poll. When she tried to open the page in her web browser, it showed a lock sign. Looking back, she’s not confident she would have voted even if her phone had worked because she doesn’t like to make decisions without doing her research. “I feel like, if I was in a rush decision, I probably would have chosen Trump,” Seevers said, pointing to the success of the pro-life movement during his administration. But she also wondered if her mixed feelings about Trump would have prompted her to choose “other,” like Peters.

“I think there’s just a lack of information about, well, where is [Trump] heading? Where would he take us?” Seevers said. “And even critical thinking about … if he is president again, how would he act upon or act in light of what he said recently, and/or in the past?”

She acknowledged there’s a lot wrapped up in being the president, including plenty of things that she doesn’t understand. But she doesn’t think politics can be an excuse for wavering in support of babies. If Trump truly believes in the humanity of unborn children, Seevers said, “he should unequivocally believe that they should not be murdered.”