# Post-Dobbs Ballot Measures (2022–2024) The wave of state ballot initiatives on abortion rights following the Supreme Court's June 2022 decision in [[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]], which overturned [[Roe v. Wade]]. From August 2022 through November 2024, voters in **fourteen states** decided ballot measures related to abortion access — and the side favoring abortion rights prevailed in **nearly every contest**, including in deep-red states where Republican candidates won by double digits on the same ballot. The results demonstrated that abortion rights command majority support even in conservative electorates when the question is put directly to voters, bypassing the gerrymandered legislatures and activist judges that the [[Anti-Abortion Movement]] had spent decades capturing. ## Kansas: The First Test (August 2, 2022) Kansas was the first state to vote on abortion after Dobbs — and the result shocked the political establishment. On August 2, 2022, Kansas voters rejected **"Value Them Both" Amendment** by a margin of **59% to 41%**. The amendment would have removed the right to abortion from the Kansas state constitution, clearing the way for the Republican-dominated legislature to ban or severely restrict the procedure. The result was stunning for several reasons. Kansas is a reliably Republican state — Trump carried it by 15 points in 2020. The vote was held during a low-turnout August primary, which typically favors conservative voters. Anti-abortion groups outspent abortion-rights groups significantly. Yet the margin was not close: nearly 60% voted to preserve abortion protections. Kansas demonstrated what would become the defining pattern: when abortion is on the ballot as a standalone question — separated from partisan identity and candidate preference — it wins, and it wins big, even on Republican turf. ## 2022: The Opening Wave Three additional states voted on abortion-related measures in November 2022: - **Kentucky**: Voters **rejected** a proposed constitutional amendment declaring that the state constitution contains no right to abortion. The margin was 52.3% to 47.7% — in a state Trump carried by 26 points. - **Montana**: Voters **rejected** a measure that would have required medical care for infants "born alive" during abortion procedures (a measure framed by opponents as effectively criminalizing abortion providers). The margin was 52.6% to 47.4%. - **California, Vermont, Michigan**: Voters in all three states **approved** constitutional amendments enshrining abortion rights. Michigan's was particularly significant — it passed 57% to 43% and effectively overturned the state's dormant 1931 abortion ban. The 2022 results were striking not because liberal states protected abortion rights (California and Vermont were expected) but because **Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana** — all red states — rejected anti-abortion measures. The midterm elections overall defied the expected "red wave," and abortion was widely credited as the decisive issue. Democrats held the Senate and limited Republican House gains to a historically narrow majority. ## Ohio 2023: The Supermajority Gambit Ohio's 2023 vote was a two-part drama that illustrated both the power of the ballot-measure strategy and the lengths to which anti-abortion forces would go to block it. **August 2023 — Issue 1.** Ohio Republicans placed a measure on the August ballot to raise the threshold for passing constitutional amendments from a simple majority to **60%**. The timing was transparent: a citizen-led abortion-rights amendment was already gathering signatures for the November ballot, and the supermajority requirement was designed to make it nearly impossible to pass. Ohio voters rejected the supermajority gambit **57% to 43%**, in a special election with unusually high turnout for an off-year August vote. **November 2023 — Issue 1 (the abortion amendment).** With the simple-majority threshold preserved, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment establishing a right to "make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions" by **56.6% to 43.4%**. The amendment effectively overturned Ohio's six-week abortion ban (the "Heartbeat Bill"), which had been enacted after Dobbs. Subsequent litigation blocked the ban permanently in late 2024. Ohio was the most consequential single-state result: a state Trump carried by 8 points enshrined abortion rights in its constitution after defeating a procedural sabotage attempt designed to prevent that very outcome. ## 2024: The Largest Wave November 2024 saw **eleven abortion-related ballot measures** across ten states — the most in a single election. The results: **Passed (protecting or expanding abortion rights):** - **Arizona** — Proposition 139 enshrined a right to abortion until fetal viability. Passed **61.4% to 38.6%**. - **Colorado** — Amendment 79 enshrined abortion rights and removed a ban on public funding. Passed **61.6% to 38.4%**. - **Maryland** — Question 1 enshrined reproductive freedom in the state constitution. Passed **74.2% to 25.8%**. - **Missouri** — Amendment 3 established a right to reproductive freedom, overturning the state's near-total ban. Passed **51.6% to 48.4%** — the narrowest margin, but remarkable for a state Trump carried by 16 points. - **Montana** — CI-128 established a right to abortion before fetal viability. Passed **57.3% to 42.7%**. - **Nevada** — Question 6 established a right to abortion until fetal viability (first of two required votes). Passed **64.1% to 35.9%**. - **New York** — Proposition 1 (Equal Rights Amendment) added protections including reproductive autonomy. Passed **61.9% to 38.1%**. **Failed:** - **Florida** — Amendment 4 would have enshrined abortion rights but required 60% to pass under Florida's supermajority rule. It received **57.2%** — a clear majority, but short of the threshold. Anti-abortion forces, backed by Governor [[Ron DeSantis]], spent heavily to keep the vote below 60%. - **Nebraska** — Two competing measures: Initiative 434 (restricting abortion after the first trimester) **passed**, while Initiative 439 (protecting abortion rights until viability) **failed**. Nebraska was the only state where the anti-abortion side won outright. - **South Dakota** — Amendment G (protecting abortion until viability) **failed** 51.2% to 48.8%. ## The Pattern Across fourteen states and seventeen ballot measures from 2022 to 2024, the abortion-rights side won outright in twelve contests. Florida's measure won majority support but failed the supermajority threshold. Only Nebraska and South Dakota saw anti-abortion outcomes — and Nebraska involved competing measures that split the vote. The pattern held across the political spectrum: Kansas (R+15), Kentucky (R+26), Ohio (R+8), Montana (R+16), Missouri (R+16) all produced pro-abortion-rights majorities. The results confirmed what polling had long suggested — abortion rights command 55–65% support in most states — while revealing that Republican gerrymandering and the [[Federalist Society]]'s judicial capture strategy had created a structural gap between elected officials' positions and their constituents' actual views. ## Political Significance **Dobbs as a strategic backfire.** The [[Anti-Abortion Movement]] spent fifty years pursuing the overturning of [[Roe v. Wade]], and the ballot measure results suggest it may have been more powerful as an aspiration than as an accomplished fact. Roe's existence allowed the movement to mobilize against an abstraction; Dobbs forced voters to confront the concrete reality of abortion bans, and they overwhelmingly rejected them. **Direct democracy as a resistance tool.** The ballot-measure strategy allowed abortion-rights advocates to bypass gerrymandered state legislatures where Republican supermajorities could ignore majority opinion. The Ohio supermajority gambit showed that anti-abortion forces understood this vulnerability — and voters rejected the gambit decisively. **Electoral tailwinds.** Abortion was widely credited as the single largest factor in Democrats' 2022 overperformance. In 2024, abortion-rights measures outperformed Democratic candidates in almost every state where both were on the ballot — voters who supported Trump also voted to protect abortion access, suggesting the issue crosscuts partisan identity in ways few others do. **The [[Planned Parenthood Action Fund]] and allied organizations** — including ACLU affiliates, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, and state-level coalitions — served as the institutional backbone of the ballot-measure campaigns, providing funding, legal expertise, and organizing infrastructure. ## Related Vault Entries - Trigger event: [[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]] — the Supreme Court decision that made this all necessary - Overturned precedent: [[Roe v. Wade]] - Organizations: [[Planned Parenthood Action Fund]], [[Federalist Society]], [[Heritage Foundation]] - Concept: [[Abortion Politics]] - Ideology: [[Anti-Abortion Movement]] - Movement: [[Reproductive Rights Movement]] - Resistance: [[Resistance Hub]] ## See Also - Kansas "Value Them Both" Amendment — the first post-Dobbs test - Ohio Issue 1 (2023) — supermajority gambit and abortion-rights amendment - Florida Amendment 4 (2024) — majority support defeated by supermajority threshold - Ballot Initiative Strategy Center — direct-democracy infrastructure - [[2022 Midterm Elections]], [[2024 Presidential Election]] — electoral context