How to Interpret the Kansas Referendum on Abortion

[0] From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi.

[1] This is the Daily.

[2] On Tuesday, Kansas became the first state in the country since the fall of row to put the question of abortion directly to voters.

[3] The result was not even close.

[4] My colleague Mitch Smith on why voters in the conservative state chose overwhelmingly to preserve abortion rights and what the outcome in Kansas does and doesn't mean for the politics of abortion.

[5] in the rest of the country.

[6] It's Thursday, August 4th.

[7] So Mitch, you're in Kansas, and you've been reporting on the ballot measure on abortion in the state.

[8] Tell us what happened on Tuesday.

[9] Well, first, we're seeing just huge turnout across the state.

[10] What's happening in Kansas right now, look, we don't have, it's too early to call, but turnout is through the roof.

[11] You're not kidding about turnout.

[12] I've seen some estimates to say it could rival 2008 when Obama was first running, which is incredible for a primary, unbelievable.

[13] Really, really high numbers more than what most people were expecting, even though people were already really plugged in.

[14] If it were to pass, it would remove a constitutional right to an abortion in the state of Kansas.

[15] Right now, a resounding no vote so far.

[16] So translation there, at this point in time, those who want to keep protections in place for abortion rights have the early.

[17] The results start coming in and we start seeing these really large margins, including in some unexpected places.

[18] But there's a trend that's developing here.

[19] You're seeing it through the suburbs of Kansas City, the suburbs of Topeka, through Wichita and its environment.

[20] A lot of people say they like the status quo on abortion rights.

[21] They don't want to see anyone opening the door to ban it.

[22] In the county that includes Wichita, it's 5742.

[23] In Topeka, the politically mixed capital, 6634.

[24] And then you can in some rural areas.

[25] Osage County, Franklin County, Gary County, they're all voting in favor abortion rights and often by pretty large margins.

[26] And tonight, a massive turnout of Americans in the deep red state of Kansas has spoken and protected the constitutional right to abortion there.

[27] And within a few hours, it became clear that this amendment was going to fail that abortion rights would remain guaranteed in Kansas.

[28] So Mitch, this all seems pretty important, given the fact that Kansas is really this kind of island of abortion access right now, right?

[29] I mean, we've talked to women driving there from all over, like even from southern Texas, because, as you know, abortion is now banned in so many neighboring states.

[30] So it seems bigger than just Kansas.

[31] Like, it keeps access alive for women in a whole region of the country.

[32] It really does.

[33] This is a state that even before Roe fell, about half the abortions performed there were women who didn't live in Kansas.

[34] And now Missouri has a near -total ban, Oklahoma has a near -total ban, Arkansas, Texas.

[35] And so it's really becoming just increasingly rare place where abortion is accessible in the middle of the country.

[36] So give us the context for this vote, Mitch.

[37] I mean, how did we get here?

[38] How did abortion get on the ballot in Kansas?

[39] Well, you know, it kind of dates back several years where you have state legislators.

[40] The legislature is dominated by Republicans.

[41] who are passing laws that kind of chip away at abortion rights.

[42] And some of those get challenged.

[43] And they go to the state Supreme Court.

[44] But the thing you need to know at the Kansas Supreme Court is that a majority of its justices were actually appointed by Democratic governors.

[45] And then in 2019, they issue a ruling that strikes down one of those laws and finds a right to abortion in the state constitution.

[46] So, Mitch, how does that exactly work?

[47] I mean, presumably Kansas's state constitution doesn't mention abortion explicitly, right?

[48] Like, similar to the way that the U .S. Constitution didn't say that women had a fundamental right to abortion, but it was interpreted that way.

[49] Yeah, it's similar.

[50] The state justices in Kansas, they found that abortion was protected implicitly in the state's Bill of Rights.

[51] And so that then really limited lawmakers on what they could do to restrict abortion going forward.

[52] forward.

[53] So it's kind of like a little mini row embedded in the Kansas state constitution.

[54] That's right.

[55] So given that, how do Republicans respond?

[56] As you said, Kansas is pretty Republican.

[57] So presumably they wanted to change that.

[58] Oh, yeah.

[59] They really wanted to change that.

[60] And they were limited in what they could do.

[61] They really couldn't pass a bunch of new abortion restrictions like you might have seen in other states.

[62] So they take a different tack.

[63] They try to make a constitutional amendment to change the actual constitution and take that to the voters.

[64] So they use their supermajorities in the legislature.

[65] They circumvent the governor, who's a Democrat, to get this on the August 2022 ballot.

[66] If it passes, voting yes, that means agreeing to change the constitution and say there is no right to an abortion.

[67] If you vote no, that means you keep the constitution as it is, which means the right to an abortion has been interpreted to be in there.

[68] Okay.

[69] So they set this for August 2022.

[70] And at the time, this seems like maybe really good timing for Republicans.

[71] Why?

[72] Well, it's a primary election.

[73] And in Kansas, Republicans far outnumber Democrats.

[74] Actually, independents also outnumber Democrats.

[75] And so the people who show up to vote in primaries are very often Republicans.

[76] They have competitive races.

[77] Democrats often don't.

[78] Independents have no reason to show up in a normal year for a primary.

[79] And so this is looking like it could be a really conservative electorate voting on this amendment.

[80] But then row falls in June.

[81] And how does row falling change the dynamics on the ground in Kansas?

[82] Well, first off, it changes what the vote actually means.

[83] And before, this was a vote on whether the legislature could pass more restrictions on abortion.

[84] Now the door is open for them to potentially ban it altogether.

[85] Kansas is the first state in the nation.

[86] nation to vote on reproductive rights following the decision to overturn Roe.

[87] And so the stakes really changed.

[88] So what's at stake in this election?

[89] I think not just reproductive choice in Kansas, but in Missouri, in every border state, and frankly access to vital family and women's health care, really in the Great Plains entirely.

[90] I think it reverberates nationally.

[91] And both sides are really galvanized in a new way on this, and particularly people, maybe on the political left.

[92] Money is pouring in from places from Hawaii to New York to Canada.

[93] Maybe who support abortion rights, who hadn't been plugged into this election, that really starts to shift.

[94] Big activist groups like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood have helped raise more than $2 million.

[95] We see this huge influx millions of dollars of outside spending coming into the state.

[96] Vote yes, it is a human right, not just for the CISN -W.

[97] You see a lot of people volunteering to knock on doors or make calls for the first time.

[98] How many doors do you think you've each knocked on?

[99] Probably a few thousand each.

[100] Ads, guard sign wars, some really unfortunate cases where things go too far and signs are stolen or churches are vandalized.

[101] Not only have donations ramped up in the last several months, but so have tensions surrounding this issue.

[102] It's a really intense environment.

[103] You really just are seeing this huge outpouring of energy that is completely up into the dynamics of this race.

[104] And suddenly election day is getting closer, and this looks like it could be a tight election.

[105] And that, of course, brings us to last night's vote.

[106] Mitch, you were at an election night event, I think, in Overland Park, right?

[107] A suburb of Kansas City?

[108] That's right, yeah.

[109] What was it like?

[110] Were people surprised?

[111] You know, they were, I think, not shocked by the result.

[112] I think it was the margins and the decisiveness of it that was really heartening to abortion rights supporters.

[113] A lot of people were saying that people have.

[114] Kansas wrong, that people misunderstand what the state's about, that people misunderstand voting for Republicans for being conservative with no nuance.

[115] There was also people who said that they thought this should and could be a message to the rest of the country, that women in particular, but voters broadly are really energized on this issue.

[116] And not only that, but there's a way to make new political alliances here.

[117] This was not just Democrats.

[118] This was libertarians and moderate Republicans and people who may not agree even on the details of abortion who came together and voted this thing down.

[119] But the question that really raises is what's the applicability of this beyond Kansas?

[120] We'll be right back.

[121] My name's Whitney DeVoe.

[122] I live in Wichita, Kansas, and I'm a medical laboratory scientist.

[123] James O. Croker, 84, and I'm retired.

[124] So my name is Tyler Gilman.

[125] I am 32 years old.

[126] My name is Brenda Whitaker, and I'm a retired art director.

[127] I worked for Hallmark Cards for 28 years.

[128] Hey, I'm Andy, and I am a registered Republican in Kansas.

[129] I identify as a conservative.

[130] I was a Republican, independent, a little politically homeless.

[131] I voted no. I voted no. I voted no on the constitutional amendment.

[132] This was the very first state -level election I have ever voted in.

[133] This was not a candidate that we were voting on here.

[134] We were voting very strictly on, do you want to maintain the protections for choice that we have in Kansas?

[135] Or do you want to give the legislature the ability to effectively ban that?

[136] It's not a matter of Republican or Democratic.

[137] It's a matter of human rights.

[138] This isn't a conservative where Democrats have a problem.

[139] It's a life problem.

[140] Yeah, I can sit here and tell you that I don't like the idea of an abortion, but I also don't like the idea of me telling other people how to have that own internal dialogue with themselves.

[141] I was raped when I was 18, and at that time, there were no abortions available.

[142] So luckily, I didn't get pregnant, but it really would have ruined my life at that time if I had.

[143] I think basically it ought to be a free choice.

[144] Most of my friends, who are Republicans, believe that, yeah, they're not okay with late -term abortion, but they're also not okay with just banning it altogether.

[145] And I think that Kansas is showing that people want to vote on these issues, and these issues need to be up for vote.

[146] Mitch, how did the abortion right side actually build that coalition of voters?

[147] You said the energy really changed when Roe was a vote.

[148] overturned.

[149] But what was their strategy for flipping voters at the polls?

[150] Well, a number of different ways.

[151] There was the advertising and the messaging you'd expect, and there was also kind of leaning into some libertarian, small government sentiments.

[152] There was ads that they ran that barely mentioned abortion, or really didn't mention abortion.

[153] They call it a constitutional amendment.

[154] The truth, it's a strict government mandate that could put personal rights at risk.

[155] One alluded to mass mass management.

[156] and saying we didn't want more government mandates.

[157] Kansans don't want another government mandate.

[158] Say no to more government control.

[159] Vote no on changing the Constitution.

[160] Another suggested it was more government control on medical decisions.

[161] This confusing constitutional amendment is a slippery slope for Kansas.

[162] It gives government more power over your privacy and your personal medical decisions.

[163] Don't let politicians take away your freedom.

[164] So some messaging that uses some of the language of conservatives to make the pitch for abortion rights, ultimately.

[165] This confusing constitutional mandate amendment could lead to a full ban of any abortion in Kansas, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or a mother's life.

[166] That's extreme and goes too far.

[167] Vote no. No on changing the Constitution.

[168] So abortion rights groups, it sounds like, are using some of the Republicans' own ideas against.

[169] that's right yeah so can democrats in other states i mean watching what abortion rights activists have just pulled off in kansas learn anything from this like what does it mean electorally for democrats the midterms of course are right around the corner does this give the democrats a new playbook in some way well there's certainly a lot both sides are going to try to learn here but there's also i think some notes of caution timing was a big factor this vote happened just six weeks after Roe fell.

[170] Voter enthusiasm was really high, but will that hold, even two months from now?

[171] And also, this was an up -down vote on a single issue.

[172] And there are people who, we interviewed, who support preserving abortion rights but have nuanced views on other issues and may not agree with Democrats.

[173] And so how this factors into voters' decisions in November, where they're thinking not just about abortion, perhaps, maybe about gun rights or taxes or inflation in the economy.

[174] that remains really uncertain here.

[175] Right.

[176] In some ways, this is kind of rare because people generally vote for candidates, not issues.

[177] Exactly.

[178] Just because you supported abortion rights and this vote does not mean you're going to suddenly vote a straight Democratic ticket in November.

[179] Okay, but beyond what this might mean for politicians in the midterms, what does Kansas tell us about where Americans are on abortion right now?

[180] And what does it tell us about what might happen in the rest of the country in terms of access to it?

[181] Well, Kansas has some unique characteristics that shaped what happened here.

[182] For one, some people assume Candace is the most extraordinarily conservative state in the country, especially on abortion.

[183] I mean, maybe they remember the summer of mercy protests in 1991 or the killing of Dr. Tiller, who performed late -term abortions in 2009, that really maybe cemented an impression of Kansas.

[184] as a place that was just all the way to the right on this topic.

[185] But Candace is really a complicated political environment.

[186] It's a place that almost always votes for Republicans for president.

[187] It's a place that certainly has some real closely held conservative values.

[188] But it's not without nuance.

[189] It has a kind of a prairie populist streak to it.

[190] The current governor is a Democrat.

[191] And so all of those factors here shaped an election that maybe was the less beholden to partisan or ideological labels, as we think of them nationally, within Kansas.

[192] So in other words, Kansas is its own flavor of conservative.

[193] It's not Mississippi, right?

[194] It's not in the South where opposition to abortion is much more uniform.

[195] So a win in Kansas, in some ways, for the abortion right side, doesn't necessarily mean a slam dunk in other places.

[196] Certainly not a slam dunk.

[197] But it does open the possibility, certainly, of exploring ballot initiatives in other states.

[198] So California, Michigan, Vermont, those states are going to ask voters whether to affirm the right to abortion there.

[199] And Kentucky is going to ask voters whether to reject it in their state constitution.

[200] So we're going to start to get some more data points in the coming months of where other voters are landing here.

[201] But one thing to remember here is Kansas is a state where abortion is currently legal, has been, up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

[202] that is the status quo.

[203] And so this election was removing the guarantee to that access and potentially setting the stage for lawmakers to come in and either pass really sweeping restrictions or even an outright ban, whereas some of these other states already have one or both of those things.

[204] And so it's not really a perfect comparison.

[205] Right.

[206] Again, in that way, Kansas is kind of its own thing.

[207] True, true.

[208] So, Mitch, I'm thinking about the anti -abortion side and, you know, imagining that they must be watching this pretty closely, too, and probably drawing conclusions of their own.

[209] What are you hearing about the lessons that they're taking from this?

[210] Certainly.

[211] Well, they're disappointed, and they're looking at what went wrong on their side, and they're not done.

[212] And, you know, it's interesting because when you pull way back from what happened in Kansas this week, and you look at the next.

[213] national level, the anti -abortion side just scored a huge win, something they've fought for for decades.

[214] But it's fundamentally shaken and reshaped the political landscape on these issues in ways that we really don't know yet how they're going to settle.

[215] We know from polling that abortion's a topic that people have nuanced kind of gray area opinions on.

[216] They maybe aren't for abortion anytime anywhere, but they maybe want exceptions for some instances or want it available with some limits.

[217] They're existing in some kind of middle ground.

[218] And this campaign was able to capitalize on that.

[219] And so the thing that we're seeing, and the results in Kansas and the campaigns revving up in some of these other states in debates and capitals like Indiana, where Republican lawmakers right now are feuding over the details of a proposed near total ban, and the possibility of that total ban, the fact that we're not governing in hypotheticals anymore, that's shown that people are more complicated than party labels on this issue.

[220] And, you know, that's what Kansas, this first vote nationally in this post -row world, I think that's what it really showed.

[221] Right, when people are faced with a possibility of a total ban on abortion, at least in Kansas, voters resisted.

[222] Right, and we'll start to see in the coming months where other states, where this is unresolved, where they land.

[223] Kansas was the first test here, but there will be more.

[224] Mitch, thank you.

[225] Thanks for having me. We'll be right back.

[226] Here's what else you should know today.

[227] In a dramatic day of testimony, parents of children killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 confronted the conspiracist Alex Jones.

[228] Jesse was real.

[229] I am a real mom.

[230] I mean, I have a history.

[231] And there's nothing that you could have found.

[232] Because it doesn't exist that I'm not.

[233] deep state.

[234] It's just not true.

[235] Jones, who runs the website Info Wars, is in civil court on defamation charges for his claims that the shooting was a hoax and that it was staged.

[236] I know you know that.

[237] That's the problem.

[238] I know you know that.

[239] And you keep saying it.

[240] You keep saying it.

[241] Why?

[242] Why?

[243] For money?

[244] Because you made a lot of money why you've said it.

[245] Under questioning on the stand, Jones admitted for the first time that the massacre did, in fact, happen.

[246] Do you understand now that it was absolutely your responsibility to do that?

[247] It was, especially since I've met the parents, and it's 100 % real.

[248] It's 100 % real.

[249] At another point, a lawyer for the parents of the dead children produced text messages from Jones's cell phone.

[250] They showed that Jones had withheld key evidence, which potentially opens him up to charges of perjury.

[251] And in Tuesday night's primaries, election deniers became Republican nominees for governor and for Secretary of State in key battleground states.

[252] Their victories bring the total number of states where Republicans deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election to four, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

[253] The state offices they've been nominated to compete for have substantial authority over how elections are run.

[254] And if the nominees win, it raises questions.

[255] about how they will administer elections in the future.

[256] Today's episode was produced by Claire Tennis Ketter, Jessica Chung, and Rochelle Bonja.

[257] It was edited by Lisa Chow and M .J. Davis -Linn.

[258] Contains original music by Marian Lazzano.

[259] And was engineered by Chris Wood.

[260] Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.

[261] That's it for the Daily.

[262] I'm Sabrina Tavernisi.

[263] See you tomorrow.