As the U.S. closes in on what will likely be the most consequential election for abortion care in recent history, pro-choice advocates are setting their sights on a specific voting bloc: Republicans.
Ten states, half of which are GOP strongholds, have abortion-related amendments on their ballots. Protecting statewide access to abortion care will require voters to break with some of their party leaders.
And that could certainly happen. In 2022, just months after the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade, voters protected abortion care in every state where the issue was on the ballot. It was true in Kentucky, a deep-red state, and even a year later in Ohio, a state notorious for some of the most extreme anti-choice legislation in the country. This year, ballot measures in Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota will face the same test.
Except for Montana, all five states have enacted extreme abortion bans since the fall of Roe. Missouri and South Dakota have near-total abortion bans, while Florida’s six-week restriction was the final nail in the proverbial coffin for abortion access across the Southeast. Though the states are Republican strongholds, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their voters are overwhelmingly anti-abortion.
“Someone may want to vote for Donald Trump, or they have voted in 2022 for Ron DeSantis, but that doesn’t mean that they agree with them on every issue – and abortion is a great example of that,” Lauren Brenzel, director for Florida’s Yes On 4 campaign, said during a press call earlier this week.
In Florida, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by over 1 million, a summer poll showed former President Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris while nearly 70% of those same respondents supported the pro-choice ballot measure.
It’s odd, given the fact Trump has a long anti-abortion history and has long waffled over whether he would enact a national abortion ban if elected. But abortion ballot campaign leaders are confident that voters’ views on abortion are more nuanced and less partisan than the political two-party system would have us believe.
“Ballot measures really enable voters to isolate a particular issue and the values that they hold around that issue, and maintain their other partisan identities,” Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, said in the same press call. The Fairness Project is the largest funder of pro-choice measures this year, committing over $30 million to supporting abortion rights campaigns.
“Ballot measures really enable voters to isolate a particular issue and the values that they hold around that issue, and maintain their other partisan identities.”
– Kelly Hall, The Fairness Project
Nearly all of the pro-choice groups in red states are running nonpartisan campaigns, but they have strategies for winning over Republican voters. More and more, their talking points center on personal liberties and freedom to bridge the gap for voters who may identify as conservative or independent — an approach that was successful in Kansas in 2022.
And while the messaging is largely the same, the messenger looks a bit different.
“We have been working with a lot of clergy and faith leaders who we know are supportive of Amendment 3,” Rachel Sweet, the campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said on the same call.
Sweet described faith leaders as strong messengers in more conservative circles because they “really serve as ambassadors and validators for the campaign to audiences who might not be as receptive to hearing from quote-unquote an abortion rights organization or an abortion rights campaign.”
In Florida, Brenzel and her team are planning to host a statewide phone bank where physicians will call constituents to discuss the impact of Florida’s six-week abortion ban. In an ad campaign, the group highlighted stories from a Republican physician and even a Catholic doctor who is personally opposed to abortion but doesn’t support the government being involved in her medical practice.
Clergy members and Republican physicians may be odd bedfellows for abortion rights campaigns, but they could be the key to winning — especially in an election season marred by mis- and disinformation. All five Republican states with abortion rights amendments have seen rampant misinformation campaigns created by anti-abortion advocates or the state’s very own government.
To combat misinformation, abortion ballot campaigns are simply telling the truth. Many groups are using the power of storytelling at rallies and in ad campaigns, including in Florida, where a woman needed an abortion for life-extending care after a cancer diagnosis, and in Missouri, where a woman needed miscarriage care after an ectopic pregnancy.
“There are a lot of Missourians, especially folks who may be more conservative, who would never see themselves as someone who would choose to have an abortion, but they might be able to see themselves as someone who has struggled with a miscarriage,” Sweet said.
Nebraska is particularly interesting because it’s the only state with competing abortion measures — one measure that would codify the state’s current 12-week abortion ban and another that would restore abortion access up until a pregnancy reaches fetal viability. Ashlei Spivey, the campaign leader for Nebraska’s pro-abortion rights initiative, told reporters in another call this week that the opposition intentionally crafted their amendment to look similar to the pro-choice measure in hopes of confusing voters.
The abortion opposition campaign has gone so far as to trick voters into signing a petition that qualified the anti-choice measure for the ballot. “Folks that were [petitioning] for the anti-abortion measure would say to people, ‘Do you believe in pro-choice or pro-life?’ And whatever they said, ‘Oh, this is the ballot for you,’ and they would sign,” Spivey said. At least 300 Nebraskans requested the state remove their signatures from the anti-abortion ballot petition.
“We are not trying to convince voters of something that they don’t already believe. Our job is to make sure that voters know these extreme abortion bans impact their friends, their family, their loved ones and possibly even themselves,” Sweet said.
“You can still identify as a conservative or Republican, an independent — however you see yourself,” she continued. “You can still be that and acknowledge that in states like Missouri, politicians have gone too far, and there is a solution for us to take back power and end bans like we’ve seen in Missouri.”
All of the measures except South Dakota’s would restore abortion access until fetal viability, or around 24 weeks of pregnancy. South Dakota’s initiative seeks to restore access through the first trimester. Every campaign in a red state needs a simple majority to pass, except in Florida, where the measure needs 60% of the vote.