Mission Aborted

Last night, in the first state vote on the issue of abortion, Kansas decided to keep abortion in the state constitution.
 
But the result is far more substantial than just that – which is saying a lot, but the vote purely on its results is pretty substantial.  But consider:
 
Kansas is a solidly red state.  Trump won it in 2020 by almost 15 points.  Republican registration outnumbers Democratic registration by 2-to-1.
 
Republican Kansas legislators scheduled this vote on abortion to be held during the primary, when turnout would not only be low, but there were far more meaningful Republican races that would bring out more Republicans than Democrats.
 
The ballot measure was intentionally written in a way to be confusing, and make voters think that a “Yes” vote would be to maintain abortion rights – when, in fact, it was a “No” vote that would keep the right to an abortion from being removed from the Kansas constitution.
 
And in the days leading up to the election, an as-yet unknown group had a mass campaign to carpet the state with deceptive text messages sent across Kansas, meant to trick voters, by telling the public (falsely) that it was a “Yes” vote that would retain abortion.  (Again, this was untrue, because “Yes” votes would actually end abortion.)

Republicans in Kansas created a perfect storm of obstacles to guarantee that abortion would be eliminated in the state.
 
And with all of those hurdles in place to end abortion in Kansas, the measure not only failed, but (as of this writing, late Tuesday night) when all the votes are counted, looks like it will fail by almost 20 points, around 59%-41%.  In a state Trump won by 16 points.
 
And it’s even worse than that.
 
A normal mid-term primary election in Kansas draws about 450,000 voters.  But this year, more surely because the abortion measure was on the ballot, the total was over a massive 900,000.
 
Republican officials and candidates across the country must be terrified.
 
GOP candidates have two options:  they can continue to support banning all abortion as strongly as they have been, or they can begin to fudge their stance and change their position to supporting some abortion.
 
But that’s where the problem for Republicans kick in.  If GOP candidates try to soften their stance on abortion, not only will their Democratic opponents point out that this is a hypocritical deception of their long-held, inflexible anti-abortion positions, but the Republican base against all abortion all the time for all reasons will be outraged and weaken their support.  But if these same Republican candidates don’t change their positions and remain as strictly anti-abortion as their records have long been…Kansas voters have shown how strongly the public not only abhors this, but will come out in droves to vote to protect what had long been their Constitutional right.
 
And make no mistake, of course Democrats are already preparing their campaigns against Republicans on the abortion issue.  If a Republican tries to wriggle out of their previous all anti-abortion stance, their Democratic opponent will be ready with ads and mailers trumpeting what that stance has always been.  In fact, even if a Republican candidate has been a touch more flexible than most in his party and supported a few exceptions, Democrats will nonetheless tie them to their party and make clear that banning all abortions all the time for all reasons is the position of the GOP.
 
And the problems go further for Republicans.  Because I suspect that Democrats will see this voter response in Kansas to over-reaching on a Constitutional right by Republicans, and try (as they properly should) to tie them all together –
 
That Republicans want to take away your right to an abortion.  And want to take away your right to using contraceptives.  And your right to marry whoever you want.  And don’t want to protect your children in schools by allowing automatic rifles available to everyone.  And as much as Republicans try to claim they’re for “protecting freedom!”, in fact their actions time and again show the very opposite.  That the Republican Party wants to impose itself on your life and your decisions and take away your choices for them to make.  And that, in turns, allows Democrats to undercut the false GOP school board issues like “They want to teach Critical Race Theory!!” and banning books – and show that this is just one more case of the Republican Party wanting to take away your freedoms, your choices, and impose itself on all your decisions in your life.
 
And this huge vote in Kansas on abortion, and the massive turnout, opens the door to all that.  And big turnouts always favor Democrats.
 
The question, of course, is whether being upset at these issues will translate into votes.  I think it will, but we’ll find out.  More to the point, though, is that this 18-point margin in red Kansas and double the normal turnout should terrify Republicans.  Because just like Democrats don’t yet know if these issues will translate into votes…neither do Republicans.  But the results are not ones that should give Republicans comfort.
 
Polls still favor Republicans in the House, with the Senate more an open question, though Democrats might possibly have an edge.  But there are three months to go, and a lot of issues on the table, most notably inflation.  So – who knows? 

But the one thing we do know is that actual votes are more important than any poll.  And the actual votes in red Kansas to protect abortion is significant.

Republican officials and candidates must be terrified.