The Pro-Choice Ballot Winning Streak Ends

Abortion-rights protesters in Arizona. Photo: Rebecca Noble/Reuters/Redux

Between the reversal of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 2022 and the 2024 election, voters registered their opinions on abortion policy seven times. In red as in blues states, the pro-choice forces won seven straight times (three times rejecting anti-abortion measures, four times confirming abortion rights). Eager reproductive-rights advocates in ten states managed to put measures restoring (and in some cases extending) Roe’s protections on 2024 general-election ballots. And now we know: The winning streak has ended but not without some striking victories.

Voters in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota rejected constitutional amendments protecting abortion rights. South Dakota was the one straightforward defeat: Fifty-nine percent of voters opposed an initiative restoring Roe’s original trimester system of abortion regulations (first-trimester abortions completely protected, third-trimester abortions unprotected except for procedures necessary to protect the life or health of the mother) after the “no” forces outspent initiative proponents in that very conservative state. In Nebraska, the narrow defeat of a constitutional amendment enshrining a right to pre-viability abortions was likely attributable to confusion over a competing initiative with a similar title that actually enshrined the state’s existing 12-week abortion ban. That second measure passed with 55 percent of the vote.

Then there was the bitterest defeat of all, in Florida, where 57 percent of voters backed a constitutional amendment restoring Roe’s protections and overturning Ron DeSantis’s six-week abortion ban. Unfortunately, the state requires 60 percent for voter ratification of constitutional amendments, and active opposition from DeSantis and his various agents, as well as from Catholic and Evangelical activists, doomed the measure in a very Republican year in Florida (Trump won the state with 56 percent of the vote).

On the other hand, abortion-rights initiatives won in seven states, including four carried by Trump. Margins of victory in these red states ranged from 4 percent in Missouri to 16 percent in Montana, 22 percent in Arizona, and 28 percent in Nevada.

Three blue states predictably passed sweeping abortion-rights measures by comfortable margins. In Colorado (62 percent “yes”) and Maryland (74 percent “yes”), state constitutional amendments were approved providing for unconditional abortion rights. In New York, abortion rights were advanced via a much broader “equal-rights amendment” that won 62 percent (despite earlier fears it was in trouble).

All this must, of course, be viewed against the backdrop of two troubling developments. First and foremost is the return to the White House of the man who promised and delivered a Supreme Court reversal of Roe. Second is the GOP’s newfound control of the Senate, which confirms and rejects the federal judicial appointments that will shape the future of reproductive rights. There remains a lot of popular momentum for protecting abortion rights. But Trump sits atop a federal regulatory regime that could cause a lot of trouble for women, despite his claims to oppose federal meddling with state prerogatives on this issue. The danger he poses, plus the horrible laws that will continue to be enforced in large states like Florida, Georgia, and Texas, show how far the reproductive-rights movement has to go.