Organizers have a good time the defeat of Issue 1 during an election night party at the Columbus Fire Fighters Local 67 on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023 in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio voters have rejected a proposal that may’ve made it harder for voters to amend the state structure, including one measure set for the November ballot that may guarantee abortion rights in the state.
Adam Cairns | The Columbus Dispatch | AP
For the third time in a 12 months, voters in a conservative state have shot down an attempt by Republicans to make constitutional changes that concentrate on abortion.
Ohioans on Tuesday resoundingly rejected an amendment, generally known as Issue 1, to lift the threshold for constitutional changes in the state from a straightforward majority to 60% of ballots solid.
Although Ohioans did in a roundabout way vote on abortion, the failure of Issue 1 means an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state structure is more prone to pass when voters head to the polls again in November.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the people of Ohio had rejected Issue 1 by a 14-point margin. Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in Ohio by 8 points in the 2020 presidential election.
The numerous turnout for a special election in the dead of summer suggests abortion stays a motivating factor for voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a troubling sign for Republicans.
Nearly 40% of registered voters in Ohio solid ballots in Tuesday’s election, in keeping with preliminary results from the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office.
President Joe Biden’s reelection manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez told NBC News, “It speaks volumes that Ohioans showed up in an off 12 months.”
And it just isn’t just Ohio. Republican-dominated state legislatures have repeatedly put the query of abortion directly before voters in the wake of the conservative Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to abolish federal constitutional protections for the procedure.
Kansas was the first unfavorable state result for anti-abortion activists. Lower than two months after the fall of Roe, voters in the state rejected an amendment that may have stripped state constitutional protections for abortion by an 18-point margin.
And the following November, voters in deeply conservative Kentucky narrowly rejected a state constitutional amendment that said there is no such thing as a right to an abortion in the state.
Abortion helped Democrats pare their losses in the House and maintain control of the Senate in last 12 months’s midterm elections, which are sometimes a washout for the party in power. And the issue will likely prove vital to turning out Democrats and independents in key swing states in the 2024 presidential election.
Biden weighed in on the results in Ohio on Tuesday night, attacking Issue 1 as “a blatant try to weaken voters’ voices and further erode the freedom of girls to make their very own health care decisions.”
Ohio’s rejection of the Republican-backed ballot measure also comes as welcome news for Sherrod Brown, the senior Democratic senator who is predicted to face a troublesome reelection fight next 12 months in a state that has been trending heavily Republican.
Brown’s political fate in 2024 could determine whether Democrats maintain their razor-thin majority in the U.S. Senate. He hailed the failure of Issue 1, saying Ohio voters rejected a “power grab” by special interests and the wealthy and powerful.
A recent poll from USA Today and Suffolk University found 58% of Ohioans support a constitutional amendment to guard abortion rights in their state.
Arizona, Florida referendums
As the 2024 presidential election nears, the fight over abortion access could boost Democratic turnout in Arizona, one among the crucial swing states that helped propel Biden to the White House.
Abortion rights activists in the state filed a proposed constitutional amendment Tuesday that may protect access to the procedure. The political motion committee behind the ballot initiative, Arizona for Abortion Access, needs to gather greater than 380,000 signatures for the amendment to go before voters during the 2024 general election.
In Florida, abortion rights activists are already collecting signatures to carry a referendum in 2024 on a constitutional amendment that may prohibit the state from restricting abortion access.
The political motion committee Floridians Protecting Freedom launched the campaign in May after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a number one Republican presidential candidate, signed a six-week abortion ban into law.
The abortion rights coalition has collected nearly half one million signatures to date, with greater than 890,000 needed for the constitutional amendment to go before voters.
Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, hailed the result in Ohio’s special election Tuesday as a harbinger of what’s to come back in Florida in 2024.
“Since the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision last 12 months, abortion access has prevailed each time voters have had the probability to weigh in,” Brenzel said in a press release.
“The defeat of Ohio’s Measure 1 is the latest in a growing string of victories across the country that bodes well for the success of our campaign here in Florida,” she said.