The Kansas roadmap demystified
We’ve seen a few local special elections take place in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s reversal, with one conservative legislative district in Michigan that went for Trump in 2020 swung for the Democratic candidate by double digits – but on Tuesday night, we saw the first statewide election following the overturn of Roe v. Wade in which the voters weighed in on a ballot initiative in the notoriously conservative state of Kansas.
The proposition, if successful, would have stripped abortion rights from the state constitution – but it failed overwhelmingly by double digits. Of course, there are a number of caveats to be had when looking at this measure – but there’s also some important points that the Democrats can learn from as well.
While this was in a state that’s redder than much of the country, it goes to show that states that already have Democratic leadership can propose ballot initiatives to protect reproductive rights as they stand and get a popular surge of support, even if it’s from people that have never and will likely never support a Democratic candidate. It also shows that the repeal of Roe v. Wade is having a surge of pushback that’s helping Democrats, and that means any Democratic candidates for office need to point that out.
This should be all the incentive we need to not only maintain control of both houses of Congress but also as many state legislatures as we can – as the inevitable result of Republican victories will only be the inevitable rollback of these rights. Momentum is on our side so let’s do all we can to keep it from happening.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making