“Yes on 3” signs are displayed outside of the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom office on October 26, 2024. | Arin Yoon/Washington Post via Getty Images
Americans in 10 states cast votes on ballot measures to protect or expand abortion access, and in seven, the measures for abortion rights won. That brings the total to 14 states approving abortion rights referendums since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
Ballot proposals sailed through on Tuesday not only in blue states like New York and Maryland, but also in red and purple states like Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Montana. Missouri, which was the first state to completely ban abortion after Roe fell, is now the first state to overturn a ban. All told, the pro-abortion rights measures passed on Tuesday will expand access for millions of women of reproductive age who live in those states, as well as thousands of others traveling from more restrictive areas for care.
The biggest loss of the night was undoubtedly in Florida, where advocates had raised more than $100 million to reverse the state’s near-total ban on abortion. The ban, which took effect this past spring, has decimated access not only for residents living in the third most populous state but also for people across the South who had been traveling to Florida since Roe was overturned. While a majority of Florida voters backed the proposal, which would have restored abortion rights up to the point of fetal viability — typically between 22 and 24 weeks of a pregnancy — Florida law requires at least 60 percent of voters to approve a ballot measure to pass.
This 60 percent “supermajority” threshold is simply a high bar for any referendum, and Florida’s earned 57 percent. Of all the winning abortion rights ballot measures that have passed in red or purple states since Roe’s overturn, none have reached that 60 percent level. In 2023, Republican lawmakers tried to raise Ohio’s ballot measure threshold to 60 percent precisely to make it harder for a pending abortion rights proposal to pass, and voters rejected the move. Ohio voters ultimately approved their abortion rights measure by 57 percent.
The other losses Tuesday night were in red states, like Nebraska, where voters were confronted with two (intentionally confusing) constitutional measures, and South Dakota, where reproductive rights groups didn’t help campaign for a ballot measure that would have overturned the state’s total ban. The ballot measure failed.
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