Abortion rights win big in 2023

The issue shows its staying power in off-year elections

Good morning. I’m up early, fresh off a hit for NPR’s Morning Edition and Up First.

AI prompt: “tired girl early in the morning on the radio”

In a moment, I’m going to attempt to go back to sleep for an hour or two before I join NPR’s 1A and Here & Now later today to talk more about the takeaways from the 2023 election….and then stay up for tonight’s third Republican debate! #Coffee!

But first - abortion rights won big in several states:

• Ohio, where the vote was quickly called last night in favor of Issue 1, the amendment protecting reproductive health decisions including abortion at least up to fetal viability.

• Kentucky, where the Democratic incumbent, Gov. Andy Beshear, leaned into his support for abortion rights and fended off a challenge from the state’s Republican attorney general, who’d defended the state’s near-total abortion restrictions. As I noted in my piece for NPR, the Beshear campaign released an emotional ad featuring a rape survivor telling her story.

• Virginia, where Democrats staved off a Republican trifecta that likely would have resulted in new abortion restrictions - by not only holding the state Senate, but also flipping the House.

• Pennsylvania, where a Democrat won an open state Supreme Court seat after abortion rights groups invested in the campaign - a strategy these groups have been stepping up recently (think Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court race earlier this year).

This is all good news for Democrats, who’ve been hoping the abortion rights issue would continue to have the salience with voters that was seen in several ballot measure campaigns last year.

A few takeaways:

• Ballot measures continue to look like a powerful tool for abortion rights supporters. Expect more next year. Those efforts are already in the works in several key states including Arizona and Florida.

• Ballot measures can succeed not only in protecting the status quo, but in pushing back against restrictions that go beyond the will of voters.

• Abortion rights can be a winning issue even in red-leaning states like Ohio and Kentucky, as we saw last year with ballot measures in Kansas and again, Kentucky. That’s particularly true where Republican lawmakers have pushed through near-total abortion bans. Most Americans support at least some level of legal abortion access.

• We will hear more about abortion in 2024! In those aforementioned ballot initiative fights, and from candidates in races for statehouses, Congress, and of course, the presidential campaign.

That’s it! Stay tuned for more…