Abortion rights ballot winning streak halted
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Voters in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota voted against expanded abortion rights on Tuesday, ending a string of victories for ballot initiatives to enshrine or expand abortion access.
Why it matters: Those defeats were offset by results that broke for abortion rights in New York, Colorado, Maryland and in deep red Missouri and Montana. But they underscored the fractured reproductive health landscape that's evolved since Roe v. Wade was struck down.
The big picture: Voters in 10 states weighed in on measures that would have enshrined abortion access in their constitutions this year, the most in a single year.
- Abortion rights advocates raised $160 million for the measures, outspending abortion opponents by more than 6-to-1, according to the Associated Press.
- State abortion rights measures previously won every time they were on the ballot in 2022 and 2023, including in red states like Ohio and Kentucky.
It's not yet clear how much the ballot initiatives drove voter turnout.
- In early exit polls, roughly 14% of voters said abortion was the most important issue for their vote, consistent with pre-election polling that found about 1 in 8 voters ranked abortion as their top concern.
State of play: Voters in Maryland and Colorado, which already had abortion protections, supported measures enshrining abortion rights. Nevada voters also passed a measure supporting abortion rights.
- New York voters approved a ballot measure that faced potential hurdles. Proponents worried its framing as an equal rights amendment — and its lack of the use of the word abortion — might have confused voters.
- Before Roe was overturned, "the consensus was that an equality-based strategy for abortion rights had advantages to it. New York's is the first ballot measure we've seen that relies on that theory," Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California at Davis, told Axios.
- Missouri voters approved a closely watched measure removing the state's strict ban on abortion and protecting abortion access up to fetal viability, or about 24 weeks.
- "That is not a place that is on anybody's swing state map. It's not on the Senate map. It is people just out there trying to get health care to their community," Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a group behind many of the abortion rights ballot initiatives.
Between the lines: The effort in Florida to enshrine abortion access until fetal viability required 60% of votes to pass — a higher hurdle than any other state.
- It received 57% of the vote with 99% of precincts reporting as of Wednesday morning. As a result, Florida's six-week ban will remain in place.
- "Florida would have had to have been the most [supportive] of any place we've seen to date," Ziegler said.
Nebraska had two abortion measures on its ballot. Voters backed an amendment to keep in place limits on abortion after the first trimester.
- A competing measure that would have protected a "fundamental right" to abortion until viability failed.
What to watch: Future ballot measures may be targeted at states like Arkansas, where a ballot initiative failed this year. North Dakota, Oklahoma and Maine could also see abortion on the ballot.
- But 25 states don't allow citizen-driven ballot measures.
Abortion may also become an X factor on the ballot in Florida in the 2026 midterms.
- "If the Democratic party ever wants to have a chance in Florida again, they're going to get an opportunity, ironically because this thing went down tonight," NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd said Tuesday night.
- "I talked to some Florida Republicans who secretly had hoped this would pass. Because now, Florida elected officials in 2026 ... they will have to face the voters on a six-week abortion ban," he said.
