All Five States With Abortion on the Ballot Voted to Increase Access

Five states voted to increase abortion access on Election Day, in a massive victory for women and gender minorities.

California, Michigan, and Vermont all passed constitutional amendments codifying the right to abortion Tuesday, with 65.2 percent, 55.5 percent, and 77.4 percent of the vote in each state, respectively, according to The New York Times.

Kentucky and Montana both voted against anti-abortion ballot initiatives. In Kentucky, 52.6 percent of people voted against an amendment that would have said abortion is not a protected right in the state. In Montana, 52.6 percent of state residents voted to reject a measure that would have deemed any infant “born alive” a legal person, the Times reported.

Abortion became a hotly contested issue after the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to the procedure in June. States rushed after the ruling to either enshrine or scale back abortion access. Health experts warn that banning the procedure will result in a massive uptick in the national maternal mortality rate.

In August, residents of Kansas, a typically conservative state, voted to keep abortion protections in the state constitution, a major twist that had many activists hopeful for future reproductive rights referendums—and, it would seem, with good reason.

In California, people voted by 1,617,876 points Tuesday to add an amendment to the state constitution enshrining the right to “reproductive freedom,” which includes both abortions and contraception. The state had passed a law legalizing abortion after the Supreme Court ruling, but an amendment cannot be challenged in court and therefore holds more power.

Vermont also already has a law protecting abortion, but residents voted by 91,155 points to enshrine the right to “reproductive autonomy” in the constitution, as well.

In Michigan, the Supreme Court ruling triggered a 1931 law banning abortion, but a state court temporarily blocked that law going into effect. Michigan residents passed a constitutional amendment by 443,940 points protecting abortion rights. As a result, the old law can no longer be implemented.

In a surprise similar to Kansas, voters in conservative Kentucky rejected an amendment that would have specified their constitution does not protect abortion access. The decision to keep abortion access passed by 67,953 points.

Montana abortion rights are protected under a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling, but residents voted Tuesday on a measure about fetal personhood. The law, which people rejected by 20,581 points, would have required medical care be given to “infants born alive after an induced labor, cesarean section, attempted abortion, or another method.”

The measure said “born alive” meant anything that “breathes, has a beating heart, or has definite movement of voluntary muscles.”

However, fetuses are rarely “born alive” after an abortion, according to the CDC. Montana state health experts had slammed the measure, warning it could have negatively affected care for babies born prematurely or with fatal abnormalities by preventing doctors from helping relieve any pain those babies might be in, or punishing medical professionals that let families hold such newborns before they die.

As if awaiting the midterm results weren’t enough to put Democrats on edge, Politico’s Eli Stokols and Alex Thompson reported Tuesday afternoon that White House chief of staff Ron Klain may soon depart the White House.

That would be very bad. Klain has been the Biden administration’s indispensable man. Indeed, some would argue he’s more indispensable than Joe Biden. Klain (whom I know slightly) is a decent, fiercely intelligent, highly experienced political operator whom Stokols and Thompson describe as:

... a chief of staff intent on managing the flow of information to the president and keeping a tight grip on power, advising everyone on everything and being involved in even the smallest policy and planning details. Whenever Biden is set to deliver a speech, one official explained, “Ron often has to see the [camera] shot beforehand.”

Inevitably, Klain has committed a few blunders, including, according to Politico, encouraging Biden to declare victory over Covid on July 4. Two months later, Biden said, “the pandemic is over.” One month after that your faithful correspondent flung his mask to the side, contracted Covid, and transmitted it to 13 other people, including two nonagenarians. (All recovered, but still, jeez.)

But easily more striking are Klain’s (and Biden’s) victories. As Klain himself said in August, Biden “has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.” That doesn’t happen unless you have a highly competent chief of staff working alongside you. “He’s not just experienced, he’s strategic,” John Podesta, a former chief of staff for Bill Clinton, told my colleague Daniel Strauss in January. “He’s someone who can say ‘no’ to Biden.”

I know it’s a punishing job, but if Republicans take back the House (and, possibly the Senate), the boss’s job is going to get more difficult. Biden will need Klain more than ever, and there isn’t anyone else around who can do that job half so well.

Democrat John Fetterman has defeated television doctor Mehmet Oz and won the Pennsylvania Senate race, according to a projection from NBC.

Fetterman leads Oz 49.39 percent to 48.17 percent, with 99 percent reporting.

Fetterman’s victory flips the Senate seat previously held by Republican Pat Toomey to Democrat, bringing Democrats closer to keeping their hold of the Senate.

Fetterman’s gritty victory comes after a race that initially seemed secure for the Democrats. For months, Fetterman maintained a comfortable lead in the polls, even stretching into double digits. Concerns about Oz’ schemes as a television doctor, his appearance as out-of-touch with most Americans’ experiences (see: crudité at Wegner’s), and whether he even lived in the state of Pennsylvania all plagued his campaign.

But as Election Day approached, the race tightened—perhaps due in part to the media’s inane coverage of Fetterman’s stroke recovery.

Fetterman, however, proved resilient, both as a political operator and with regards to his health. In spite of speech and auditory processing difficulties, Fetterman still chose to debate Oz just weeks before the election. And instead of allowing the media coverage to hone in on debate aesthetics, the campaign persisted in highlighting the stakes of the race—for example, Oz’s belief that abortion is between a woman, her doctor, and “local political leaders.”

Ultimately, the voters have spoken, rejecting Oz’s  largely self-funded vanity campaign, electing instead a Democrat who has been just as outspoken on trans rights as he has been on eliminating price gouging and enacting a more fair tax code. Fetterman is proof that you don’t have to give up advocating for so-called “social issues” in order to win—or in order to flip a Republican-held seat.

In a major loss, Trump-backed Republican Bo Hines has lost to Democrat Wiley Nickel in North Carolina’s 13th congressional district. FiveThirtyEight had predicted Hines to have a 77 percent chance of winning.

Nickel leads Hines 51.32 percent to 48.68 percent, with all precincts reporting.

Hines, whose campaign received over $775,000 from his family’s trust fund, enjoyed support from former President Donald Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and outgoing North Carolina Representative Madison Cawthorn.

Hines began running for Congress in North Carolina’s 5th district, but relocated to the 13th due in part to redistricting that changed seat maps.

The 27-year-old was advanced by Trump and other Republicans as a rising star in the party. The young Republican had adopted Trumpian classics, saying he was running because he did not want to “sit idly by on the sidelines and watch radical, Marxist leftists destroy our country for the next generation.” He said he would “not stand for cowardly, RINO Republicans that seek to dismantle the America First movement.”

Hines, an election denialist, has also called abortion murder and said exceptions should only be allowed for victims of rape and incest. Even then, in Hines’ worldview, those victims would only have access to abortion on a case-by-case basis after a “community-level review process” determined them eligible..

Nickel—a criminal defense attorney, former staffer in President Barack Obama’s White House, and member of the North Carolina state Senate—ran as an experienced moderate. While Nickel says the federal government is spending too much money, he also argues the state isn’t spending enough money on services like health care and public education.

Hines’ loss is yet another in a disappointing evening for Republicans, who were expecting a so-called “red wave.”

Brian Kemp was reelected as governor of Georgia Tuesday, defeating Democrat Stacey Abrams, according to a projection from CNN.

While much of the media attention on Georgia has focused on the Senate race between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, the outcome of the state’s governor race was also hotly anticipated.

Kemp, who has been a fixture of Georgia’s government since 2003, is a staunch conservative. But he has had a fraught relationship with former President Donald Trump because of his refusal to go along with Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Georgia narrowly went for Joe Biden in that cycle, and his unexpected victory there was crucial to securing the presidency.

Democrats have been gaining momentum in the formerly deep red state, a development attributed to the growing influence of voters of color, in particular Black voters.

Abrams has been credited with playing a key role in Joe Biden’s 2020 win, having spent the better part of a decade building up Georgia’s Democratic organizing infrastructure and mobilizing the state’s expanding Black middle class.

Kemp and Abrams had previously gone head to head in Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial race, with Kemp winning by just 54,723 votes, or about 1.4 percent. Abrams’s organization, Fair Fight Action, filed a lawsuit shortly thereafter alleging voter suppression, though a judge ruled against it this September.

Voting rights was a major point of contention in the leadup to the election. Last April, Kemp signed an egregious voter suppression law, sharply restricting access to absentee ballots and ballot drop boxes.

Abortion was another flashpoint in the race. Under Kemp’s governorship, Georgia passed one of the country’s most restrictive abortion laws, prohibiting the procedure after six weeks—before many people know they are pregnant. During a televised debate, Kemp refused to say whether he would further restrict access. Abrams promised to veto any additional tightening of abortion laws and to work to repeal the six-week ban.