By ALEXANDRA MIDDLEWOOD
Wichita State University
Last year Kansas had suddenly found itself as the first test of public opinion on abortion in the new post-Roe world.
The constitutional amendment — the so called “Value Them Both” amendment — failed in a high-turnout election, with 59% of the state’s voters upholding the state’s legal protections for abortion.
The strength of the rejection was quite surprising, given the usual conservativeness of Kansas — Donald Trump had won the state in 2020 by nearly a 15 point margin, and both chambers of the state legislature had veto-proof Republican majorities.
After last August’s staggering turnout many questioned whether the issue of abortion would continue to mobilize Kansas voters even when it wasn’t directly on the ballot.
My colleague Brian Amos, an assistant professor of political science at Wichita State University, and I dug into this question in a soon-to-be-published study.
Using publicly available precinct-level election results and individual-level voter registration and history data we were able to find some answers.
We find that the August 2022 primary electorate was younger, more female, and less Republican, and comprised more first-time voters than the average years.
But these demographics were also more likely to skip voting altogether in November’s general election. Only about half of first-time voters from the primary showed up for the general.
The result was an older, more male, and more Republican electorate in November. It undoubtedly impacted the election results, especially in close races like for Attorney General.
However, overall, there was a larger portion of Democrats in the 2022 general electorate than in 2018. But there was also a larger number of Republicans.
Both sides increased their vote share at the expense of unaffiliated voters.
It’s impossible to know if these partisan shifts would have been even larger had there not been the amendment on the primary ballot.
In general, the November election was unable to fully mobilize those primary voters.
In fact, Douglas County, home to Lawrence and the University of Kansas, had lower turnout in the general election than in the primary, which is nearly unheard of in election studies.
Despite these mixed results, our findings have major key implications for future elections.
First, abortion restrictions are a highly mobilizing issue even in a Republican-dominated state like Kansas.
Women, and especially Gen Z women, turned out in droves to vote against the amendment and had a large role in deciding the election results.
The abortion issue even mobilized across party lines. A significant minority of Republican voters bucked the party line and voted against the amendment.
Second, public policies like abortion restrictions can create lasting civic identities.
The primary results show that young women can be a political force to be reckoned with. There is every reason to believe that pro-choice Gen Z women will continue to organize effectively in opposition to restrictive abortion laws.
However, not all civic identities are created equal and abortion is not always an effective policy for creating sustained civic participation.
Understandably, the mobilizing effect is limited when abortion is not directly on the ballot.
In August, those identities were highly salient because citizens could directly vote on the issue. Whereas in November, abortion was only one of many issues competing for voter attention.
Alexandra Middlewood, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of political science at Wichita State University.