Pro-abortion measures trumped Harris in every state with bodily autonomy on the ballot

In every federal state Where voting took place on Tuesday, protecting abortion care received more votes than Vice President Kamala Harris. This was true regardless of whether the state ultimately chose Harris or President-elect Donald Trump, and even in the three of 10 states that did not pass the abortion measure.

Voters in seven states approved measures that would maintain or expand abortion rights: Arizona, Colorado, New York, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and Nevada. Similar measures failed in Florida, South Dakota and Nebraska; The latter had two opposing ballot measures related to abortion: one to establish a right to abortion before viability, which failed, and one to ban abortions after the first trimester, which was over.

The stark contrast between support for measures to protect bodily autonomy and support for Harris comes despite the vice president making abortion a central part of her platform. In the final weeks of her campaign, she focused even more on her message on abortion, highlighting the cases of two Georgia women who died as a result of the state’s abortion ban and heavy spending on ads on the issue.

Nina Smith, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Stacey Abrams, argued that Republicans are able to effectively convey to voters that the abortion issue will be left up to the states. In other words, it would be enough for Republicans to vote to protect abortion rights in their own states, regardless of their election for president, because Republicans would not ban it nationwide.

“I think a lot of people voted in a false sense of security,” Smith said. “People have been betting that if Donald Trump voted to enshrine abortion protections, he wouldn’t actually co-sign a national abortion ban. I think Republicans have managed to convince many women that security and the economy are issues that are much more important and relevant to them and that they would not dare pass a national ban.”

State by state

In Montana, voters overwhelmingly approved enshrining “the right to make and carry out decisions about one’s pregnancy, including the right to abortion” in the state constitution. The amendment passed with over 57 percent of the vote. Trump won the state by a similar margin, while Harris received 38 percent of the vote. Republicans also made inroads into the Senate in Montana last night, swapping Democratic Sen. Jon Tester’s seat in favor of his strongly anti-abortion Republican opponent Tim Sheehy.

Keegan Nashan, a volunteer who worked with Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, which pushed for the amendment, said Democrats are really struggling to connect with rural voters in the state, even on issues like abortion may agree.

“Democrats in Montana have not done a good job of engaging rural voters,” Nashan said. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that many people voted for Trump because, rationally or not, they feel completely disenfranchised by the Democratic Party.”

Nashan said she heard from voters who supported Republicans throughout the ballot and also voted for the amendment that their choice was based on priorities. When it came to her presidential run, Nashan said voters put issues like the economy, immigration and other social issues at the top of their priority list. “A lot of people said that food was cheaper under Trump and the economy was better under Trump,” she said. “And this abortion is just not as important as some of the other issues that Trump has promised an answer to.”

The state ballot measure on abortion gave these Montanans a chance to protect their reproductive rights and also support candidates who they believed addressed the other issues they care about.

Montana is anything but an anomaly. In Missouri, which became the first state to repeal a total ban on abortion, nearly 52 percent of voters supported a constitutional amendment enshrining reproductive rights, while only 40 percent voted for Harris.

Nevada, which voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, remains too close to call. However, the abortion measure received 63 percent of the vote, while Harris got 46 percent and Trump got 51 percent, with 93 percent of the votes counted as of Wednesday afternoon.

Even in New York, which Harris won with 55 percent of the vote, she fared worse compared to the abortion amendment, which received 62 percent support. (Harris also performed significantly worse than recent Democratic presidential candidates in the state.) The New York measure added language to the state’s Bill of Rights that prohibits discrimination based on gender, including “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes.” , and reproductive health care and autonomy.” (The right to abortion already exists in the state constitution.)

Harris also received fewer votes than abortion rights amendments in two other states she represented: Colorado and Maryland. In Colorado, it received 54 percent of the vote, while the ballot measure won 61 percent. And in Maryland, it won nearly 60 percent of the vote, while the measure passed with 74 percent support.

In Arizona, Trump was ahead with almost 52 percent of the vote on Wednesday afternoon, Harris had 47 percent, with only 63 percent of the votes counted. Arizona’s abortion ballot measure, which enshrines the “fundamental right to abortion” in the state’s constitution, easily passed with 61 percent of the vote.

Even in states where abortion rights measures were not implemented, they still did better than Harris. In Florida, an abortion ballot measure was supported by a majority of voters (57 percent) but failed due to the state’s 60 percent threshold for constitutional amendments. The measure significantly outperformed Harris, who received 42.9 percent of the vote. In South Dakota, Harris won about 34 percent of the vote, while an abortion ballot measure received 41 percent. And in Nebraska, Harris received 38 percent of the vote, while the abortion rights ballot initiative received nearly 49 percent.

For Nashan, the Montana volunteer, Democrats will have to work harder to reach voters the party hasn’t traditionally courted if they want to have any hope of getting their candidates the same level of support as the issues they’re running on. “All I can hope for is that the Democratic Party gets a little better at communicating with rural voters and communicating consistently,” she said, “let’s meet them at the table where they’re sitting and introduce it a few conversations because we have much more common values.” -wise. We are much more in line than we are different.”