EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Women of color represent a powerful U.S. voting bloc, but efforts to efforts to hinder their participation in the democratic process continue to escalate—from voter suppression laws to challenges to the Voting Rights Act in the courts. Amid these ongoing attempts to diminish the power of their voices in our democracy, Intersections of Our Lives set out to understand and lift up the priorities, concerns, and most salient voting issues for women of color through a multi-phased research project conducted in the fourth quarter of 2025 in partnership with Ipsos, a leading market research and polling company.
KEY FINDINGS
Rising costs are forcing difficult choices that shape the health, families, and futures of women of color. The majority (89%) are concerned about affordability, and 64% have delayed major life decisions, including nearly a quarter (23%) who have put off buying a home and one in five (21%) who have delayed getting health care.
Women of color see the ability to choose if and when to have children as an economic mobility issue. More than two in three (70%) believe that being able to plan when to have children helps women succeed in their careers, while 64% say that women are more likely to finish their education when they can choose if and when to have children, and 62% believe that women’s financial stability improves when they can make their own reproductive choices.
Meanwhile, few women of color think the government is doing a good job of supporting their ability to choose if and when to have children. Just 15% rate the government as doing a good job of providing access to reproductive health care, less than one in five (18%) say the government is doing a good job at ensuring people can choose whether to have children, and only 12% rate the government as doing a good job of making it possible to afford to raise children.
Women of color are living in a constant state of pressure and anxiety over the state of the country. Two in three (65%) say the nation is on the wrong track, the majority (68%) say their trust in the federal government has gotten worse in the past year, and the top emotions they use to describe how they feel about the state of the country are uncertain (50%), frustrated (49%), exhausted (38%) and angry (28%).
Although the majority of women of color believe in the power of voting to create change, they don’t feel that the system hears them. Two-thirds (65%) believe voting is crucial for change, but only 40% think their voice is heard in the political process, and more than half (64%) say traditional parties and politicians don't care about them.