OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Voters in Kansas have overwhelmingly decided not to remove the right to abortion from the state constitution, according to the Associated Press, a major victory for the abortion rights movement in one of America’s most reliably conservative states.
The failure of the referendum was the most tangible demonstration yet of a political backlash against the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that protected abortion rights across the country. The decisive margin came as a surprise and after frenzied campaigns in which both sides poured millions into advertising and door-knocking throughout the sweltering final period of the campaign.
At a campaign watch party in suburban Overland Park, abortion rights supporters cheered as MSNBC showed their side with a commanding lead.
“We’re watching the votes come in, we’re seeing the swings in some of the counties where Donald Trump had a huge percentage of the vote, and we’re seeing that he’s just been destroyed,” said Joe Dee Adelung, 63, a Democrat from Merriam, Kan., who knocked on doors and calling voters in recent weeks.
She said she hopes the result sends a message that voters are “really paying attention to all the issues and doing what’s right for Kansas, not just toeing party lines.”
The vote in Kansas, three months before midterm elections, was the first time American voters weighed in directly on the abortion issue since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer. The referendum, closely watched by national figures on both sides of the abortion debate, took on added significance because of Kansas’ location bordering states where abortion is already banned in nearly all cases. More than $12 million was spent on advertising, split evenly between the two camps. The amendment, if passed, would have removed abortion protections from the state constitution and cleared the way for lawmakers to ban or restrict abortions.
“We’ve been saying that once a decision is made in Washington, the spotlight will shift to Kansas,” said David Langford, a retired engineer from Leawood, Kan., who wants the amendment passed and who reached out to Protestant pastors to rally support. .
The push for the amendment is rooted in a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision that struck down some restrictions on abortion and found that the right to an abortion is guaranteed by the state constitution. The decision angered Republicans, who have spent years passing abortion restrictions and campaigning on the issue. They used their supermajority in the Legislature last year to put the issue on the 2022 ballot.
This state-level fight over abortion restrictions took on much more significance after the nation’s Supreme Court overturned Roe, opening the door in June for states to go beyond the restrictions and ban abortions entirely. The Roman Catholic Church and other religious and conservative groups spent heavily to support the amendment, while national abortion rights supporters poured millions of dollars into the race to oppose it.
Supporters of the amendment have repeatedly said the amendment itself would not ban abortions, and Republican lawmakers have been careful to avoid telegraphing what their legislative plans would be if it were to pass.
“Voting yes doesn’t mean abortion won’t be allowed, it means we will allow our legislators to define the scope of abortion,” said Mary Jane Muchow of Overland Park, Kan., who supported the amendment. “I think abortion should be legal, but I think there should be restrictions on it.”
If the amendment passed, however, the question was not whether Republicans would try to use their commanding legislative majority to pass new restrictions, but how far they would go in doing so. Many Kansas residents who support abortion rights said they fear a total or near-total abortion ban will be passed within months
Abortion is now legal in Kansas up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
“I don’t want to become another state that bans all abortions for any reason,” said Barbara Grigar of Overland Park, Kan., who identifies as a moderate and said she voted against the amendment. “The choice is every woman’s choice, not the government’s.”
A Pew Research Center poll released last month found that a majority of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases and that more than half of adults disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.
Kansas has been at the center of the national abortion debate since at least 1991, when protesters from across the country gathered in Wichita and blocked access to clinics during weeks of heated demonstrations they dubbed the Summer of Mercy.
At times, the state has witnessed violence on this issue. In 1986, an abortion clinic in Wichita was attacked with a pipe bomb. In 1993, a woman who opposed abortion shot and wounded Dr. George Tiller, one of the few American doctors who performed late-term abortions. In 2009, another anti-abortion activist shot and killed Dr. Tiller at his church in Wichita.
In recent years, and especially in the weeks since Roe’s downfall, Kansas has become a haven for abortion access in a region where it is increasingly rare.
Even before the Supreme Court’s action, nearly half of the abortions performed in Kansas involved out-of-state residents. Oklahoma and Missouri have now banned the procedure in nearly all cases, Nebraska may further restrict abortions in the next few months, and women in Arkansas and Texas, where new bans are in place, are traveling far beyond their state borders.
Kansas is reliably Republican in presidential elections and its voters are generally conservative on many issues, but polls before the referendum suggested a close race and nuanced public opinions on abortion. The state is not a political monolith: aside from its Democratic governor, the majority of Kansas Supreme Court justices are appointed by Democrats, and Representative Sharice Davids, a Democrat, represents the Kansas City suburbs in Congress.
Ms. Davids’ district was once a moderate Republican stronghold, but in recent years it has swung Democratic. Her November re-election in a redrawn district could be one of the most competitive House races in the country, and party strategists expect the abortion debate to play a role in districts like hers, which include swaths of upscale suburbs.
Political strategists have been particularly attuned to turnout in the Kansas City suburbs and are looking to gauge how exciting abortion is, especially to voters and Democrats in a post-Roe environment.
“They’re going to look at how to advise their candidates to talk about it, they’re going to look at every political flaw,” said James Carville, the veteran Democrat. “Every campaign consultant, everybody’s watching this thing like it’s the Super Bowl.”
As the election approached, and especially after the Supreme Court decision, the rhetoric on the issue became more heated. Police officials and activists said campaign signs on both sides were vandalized. In the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, vandals targeted a Catholic church, defacing a building and a statue of Mary with red paint.
Before Tuesday’s vote, which coincided with the primary, Scott Schwab, the Republican secretary of state, predicted that about 36 percent of Kansas voters would participate, slightly more than the primary in 2020, the year of the presidential election. His office said the constitutional amendment “has increased voter interest in the election,” a sentiment that was palpable on the ground.
“I like women’s rights,” said Norma Hamilton, a 90-year-old Republican from Lenexa, Kan. Despite her party registration, she said, she voted no.
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