In 2020, Donald Trump won Kansas over Joe Biden 56%-42%. In 2016, he bested Hillary Clinton there 56%-36%. And Tuesday, by a similar margin, 59%-41%, Kansans voted to keep state constitutional provisions that protect abortion rights.
Translation: In the first clean test since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and killed a national right to abortion, people went to the polls to preserve, not erode, that freedom. That this happened in Kansas, where registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats 850,000 to 500,000, only underlines the be-careful-what-you-wish-for scenario for anti-abortion crusaders.
Trump, the president whose appointments to the Supreme Court made the end of Roe possible, has privately groused to friends and advisers that the curtailing of abortion rights will be “bad for Republicans.” As awkward as it is to admit, he’s often been an astute reader of the public mood.
