A victory for abortion in conservative Kansas gives Republicans pause and buoys Democrats | CBC News

Strategists across the American political spectrum were busy reading the tea leaves this week, trying to intuit what a vote on abortion rights in Kansas that upended many of the expectations for primary elections in a red state might mean for the November midterm elections.

A surprisingly high turnout and a vote overwhelmingly in favour (59 per cent to 41 per cent, according to unofficial estimates) of retaining state constitutional protections for abortion surprised many and holds lessons for Democrats and Republicans, say analysts.

But he said they still undershot, not anticipating that almost half the Kansan electorate would turn out to vote, far above the 20 to 30 per cent that is usual in primary contests.

Normally, those who care about the abortion issue the most are the bases of the respective parties, but in this vote, middle-of-the-road swing voters and a large majority of Democrats overcame their disaffection with the Biden administration and braved 30-degree heat to cast votes against the measure.

He said strong turnout in bellwether districts, such as Johnson County in the east, the state's biggest and where the pro-choice vote was higher than support for Biden in the 2020 election, suggests suburban voters, especially white women, will be critical to Democrats' success in the fall.

Miller, for his part, said that while a ballot measure may not be a typical partisan vote, the fact that the post-Roe spike in voter registrations leaned disproportionately independent and Democratic suggests Republicans who put the abortion question on the ballot miscalculated, assuming independents would have no reason to turn out in the primary.

"People assume abortion is a hyper-polarised issue, and if you look at the people who are 100 per cent either way, it is, but that's not the typical American or the typical Kansan," he said.

"The typical person supports a basic right to access abortion services, but with certain limitations.".

Slightly more than 60 per cent of Kansas voters who responded said they support abortion access in cases of rape or where the woman's life is in danger compared to about 15 per cent who oppose it in those cases.

Twenty-nine per cent support access for pregnancies after six weeks and 18 per cent beyond the point at which the fetus is considered viable.

She said anti-abortion Republicans won't be able to avoid talking about the issue completely in midterm campaigns but will need to assure voters they'll protect abortion in the extreme cases and "leave it at that.".

For Democrats, the smart strategy, she said, is also to highlight those difficult cases, such as the 10-year-old victim of rape who was denied care in Ohio, which has no exceptions for rape or incest, and was sent out of state for an abortion.

"We stuck to what was really in the amendment," said Emily Wales, the president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which provides abortion care in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas.

She said the fact that pro-choice advocates could point to neighbouring states and show that losing virtually all access to abortion was a real possibility some Americans were already living with helped their message resonate with voters?

The Kansas example suggests ballot initiatives might be one way to safeguard access to abortion in a post-Roe world and get around the partisan baggage, Miller said.

"There are a lot of Republicans out there who favour the basic right to have an abortion, but yet they consistently vote for candidates who are against that right because abortion is typically not the most important issue to them," Miller said