On Tuesday evening, voters in Kansas’s primary elections overwhelmingly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to potentially restrict abortion access in the deep-red state. The vote, the country’s first statewide referendum on abortion since the Supreme Court ripped away the federal right to bodily autonomy this past June, had been closely watched as a potential political bellwether ahead of the upcoming midterms, where abortion access has become one of the central campaign issues.
To be clear, the margin by which voters rejected the bid to strip abortion protections from the Kansas constitution (59%-41% at current count) leaves little room for doubt that the public is in favor of reproductive health rights and bodily autonomy — even in a place as thoroughly conservative as Kansas. The proposed amendment was shot down in both blue-leaning districts and red ones. As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted on Wednesday morning: “There were 14 counties that backed Trump in 2020 and voted against the proposed amendment this week, home to nearly a third of the state’s population. Those counties backed Trump by 20 points and ‘no’ by 13 points.” Despite pathetic contortions on the part of conservative pundits to claim otherwise, protecting abortion access seems wildly popular across much of the political spectrum.
