Kansas voters block effort to strip abortion protections from state constitution

“This level of government overreach — literally interfering in the decisions a physician and patient make together — has resonated with people in Kansas,” she said. “It’s a scary moment to think that you or your loved one might be in a situation where it’s not up to you or your provider what care you can get and instead it’s up to the government and what they think you deserve.”

Turnout for the primary also soared above usual levels Tuesday, and in some counties was closer to the participation usually seen in a presidential election. More than 900,000 people voted, with 59 percent voting to reject the amendment.

The in-person early vote, which tends to favor Democrats, was nearly 250 percent higher than the last primary midterm election in 2018, when both Democrats and Republicans had competitive governors’ races, while the number of mail-in ballots was more than double.

The “no” campaign also outperformed in fairly conservative areas — like in Shawnee County in the eastern part of the state — coming in several points ahead of President Joe Biden’s results there in 2020.

At abortion rights groups’ campaign watch party in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, supporters cheered, cried, jumped and hugged each other tightly as new waves of votes were counted in their favor. Teens with purple hair wearing cutoffs mingled with older men and women in suits in a hotel ballroom. One woman cradled a doll of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she watched the results.

“Abortion isn’t a partisan issue — that’s a trap people fall into,” Ashley All, the spokesperson for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, told POLITICO. “That’s just not the way most Americans or most Kansans think about the issue.”

The results were also hailed by abortion rights groups around the country that see the defeat of the Kansas referendum as a blueprint for future efforts in cities and states across the country. The vote also countered the narrative that the abortion issue is a bigger motivator for conservative voters, and may signal a warning to Republican lawmakers across the country that the Roe decision may generate considerable backlash over the coming months and years.

“Reproductive freedom is a winning issue, now and in November,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement. “Anti-choice lawmakers take note: The voters have spoken, and they will turn out at the ballot box to oppose efforts to restrict reproductive freedom.”

The decision means abortion clinics in the state can continue to serve not only Kansans but also patients from Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and other states that have banned the procedure after Roe fell, many of whom have traveled to Kansas in recent weeks. The anti-abortion campaign seized on this trend, warning in ads that the state would become an “abortion destination” like California if the amendment failed.

Value Them Both, the umbrella group of anti-abortion advocates who pushed for the amendment, called the decision a “temporary setback.”

“Our dedicated fight to value women and babies is far from over,” they said in a statement Tuesday night. “We will be…