Will Abortion Ballot Organizers See an Election Day Sweep?

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Kansas voters were the first in the nation to cast a ballot on reproductive rights in their state. The success in preserving abortion rights in Kansas impacted similar statewide tests in the 2022 election cycle, said Ashley All, communications director and spokesperson for the Kansas campaign.

“I think that was critical and really informed the way every state since then has approached the issue,” All said.

This isn’t uncommon. While many abortion rights initiatives have secured a spot on the November ballot or are wrapping up the challenging signature collection process, organizations have been communicating with and watching their out-of-state counterparts. Some of these efforts are more direct, involving actions like attending conferences, publishing research results, and sharing campaign strategies.

The Fairness Project is one of the only national organizations that works with state ballot campaigns to guide them through the process. Although campaigns are led by in-state organizers, the Fairness Project offers experienced advice and is able to informally pass lessons learned in one state on to other campaigns.

“Having that additional context when you’re working with folks who are so focused on doing the best they can for their state—that’s definitely something I think we’re really valued for when we’re working with these coalitions,” said Alexis Magnan-Callaway, communications and digital director for the Fairness Project. “I will caveat this all by saying every state’s very different, and it is very much not the case that it is as simple as running the same program that’s winning in Montana in Missouri.”

After the Kansas victory, All said organizers conducted research and shared it with partner organizations across the country. The research included voter responses to questions like if they changed their position, if they were persuaded to change their position by campaign messaging, and what types of advertising were impactful.

“I think one of the lessons learned from that research and our experience in other states is that because people see it as such a personal issue, they are impacted much more significantly by conversations that they have with family, friends, and loved ones.” said All, who is now with Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights (MSRR) to bring abortion protections to that state.

In the 2023 election cycle, anti-abortion advertising in Ohio targeted the idea that the state’s parental notification policy was going to be overturned or children were going to be harmed. All said that seeing how another campaign played out and knowing how they could reach voters gave MSRR the insight to develop messaging early on in this cycle to counteract that anti-abortion tactic.

The support for ballot measures and the results of research and polling prove that reproductive and abortion rights are nonpartisan issues, All added.

Organizations in red and purple states said seeing other states with similar political landscapes pass ballot measures protecting abortion procedures encouraged them to do the same. The Arkansas Abortion Amendment received more than enough signatures to be placed on the ballot. Rebecca Bobrow, director of strategy for Arkansans for Limited Government (ALG), said it was a lesson for those who had written off Arkansas’ potential for a successful abortion rights measure. She said states like Michigan, where voters enshrined abortion access in the state constitution five months after Roe fell, helped give ALG a positive outlook on campaigning a ballot measure even if initial polling looks unfavorable.

“Through awareness raising and education [Michigan advocates] were able to get where they needed to be and have a successful outcome,” Bobrow said. “That was encouraging for our leadership to feel like they could keep going, even when perhaps other outside forces were saying, ‘You’re not going to get there, and this is going to be futile.’”

Bobrow said other coalitions provided advice and support in more tangible ways too. For example, Ohio organizers created a physicians group that coalitions there said helped reach their voters, which inspired ALG to help put together something similar in Michigan.

In Colorado, Cobalt Advocates has been actively working with other organizations since 2021 by sharing past campaign plans, including the executive summary and final data from both 2014 and 2020 cycles. In November 2023, Cobalt facilitated a discussion with other advocates about the existing abortion rights ballot measures and what to expect in more western regions of the country.

“In my experience, when you’re all on the same side, there’s a lot of good ways to work together and support each other during this really important time,” Cobalt President Karen Middleton said. “I think some of what we may be learning from each other is a little bit on the fly or on an as-needed basis, rather than a formal, structured exchange of information.”

Ballot campaigns have found ways to support similar initiatives across state lines, whether it was material strategic advice that helped another coalition sign on more supporters or encouragement that the fight for reproductive rights was not only for a select few states.

“I really have a view that we have to all sort of dig in our heels and go together, and I don’t think it’s picking and choosing which state,” Middleton said. “In my advice, we do better if we stick together and if we press forward as a united front.”

The post Will Abortion Ballot Organizers See an Election Day Sweep? appeared first on Rewire News Group.