That is shaping up as a crucial yr within the nation’s battle over abortion rights, as either side battle to outline a brand new establishment after the Supreme Court docket struck down the almost half-century-old constitutional proper final yr.

It is vital to not misinterpret what occurred in 2022. After a 6-3 majority of justices overturned Roe v. Wade, voters in six states had been requested to decide on between preserving or decreasing abortion rights. In all six — Kansas, Michigan, California, Kentucky, Montana, and Vermont — voters sided with abortion rights.

Anti-abortion politicians have fared effectively in current elections, contributing to a wave of anti-abortion laws in lots of statehouses. However when voters are requested to think about a direct poll query about abortion entry — versus weighing in on a candidate, whose anti-abortion place could also be certainly one of many stances they maintain — voters strongly favor abortion rights.

Many pundits had been shocked by final yr’s outcomes, notably in Kansas, the place voters have backed the Republican candidate in almost each presidential election since 1940. Lower than six weeks after the court docket’s resolution, Kansas residents — together with a big, principally feminine contingent of newly registered voters — rejected an modification to the state structure that was placed on the poll by anti-abortion state legislators in an effort to overturn a 2019 resolution by the Kansas Supreme Court docket.

It was unquestionably a giant deal that the abortion-rights facet gained by 18 share factors, notably for the reason that measure appeared on the poll throughout the state’s August main, when its backers anticipated decrease and Republican-leaning voter turnout.

However was the defeat of their effort to restrict abortion actually a shock? Not when you have a look at the historical past of state-level poll measures associated to abortion.

In response to the web site Ballotpedia, there have been 53 abortion-related poll measures in 24 states since 1970. Of the 43 questions supported or positioned by anti-abortion teams or legislators, voters authorised 26% and rejected 74%. Of the ten questions supported by abortion-rights backers, voters authorised 70% and rejected 30%.

In different phrases, the abortion-rights facet has gained almost three-quarters of the poll measures.

Quite a lot of of those poll questions have been in states the place Republicans have much more management than in Kansas. In South Dakota, for instance, voters in 2006 overturned a sweeping abortion ban handed by the legislature, which was designed to immediate the Supreme Court docket to rethink Roe v. Wade. Two years later, South Dakota voters additionally rejected a second, barely much less draconian ban.

Even in Mississippi, traditionally one of the vital conservative states, voters in 2011 rejected a “personhood” modification that might have added language to the state structure stating that life begins at fertilization. Voters demurred after it was identified that such a legislation may outlaw some widespread sorts of contraception and in vitro fertilization.

And lots of the anti-abortion poll measures that had been authorised handled points which have lengthy loved appreciable public help — resembling banning public funding of abortion and requiring dad and mom to be concerned in a minor’s abortion resolution.

That’s in stark distinction to the more moderen success of candidates who oppose abortion, whose numbers have dramatically elevated at each the state and federal ranges lately. Conservative Republicans gained management of so many governorships and state legislatures in 2010 that it led to a landslide of anti-abortion laws within the following years.

Abortion isn’t the one challenge for which voters have cut up ballots, weighing in on a poll initiative whereas backing a candidate with an opposing viewpoint. Increasing Medicaid protection underneath the Inexpensive Care Act is one other instance. Up to now, in seven states the place Republican governors, lawmakers, or each have refused to increase Medicaid protection to sure moderate-income residents, voters have authorised growth over these objections.

What explains how a number of the identical voters who elect and reelect candidates against abortion additionally help abortion rights in stand-alone poll questions?

One cause is that till 2022, abortion was not amongst voters’ high priorities when selecting whom to vote for. As just lately as 2016 — when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to work to ban abortion, whereas Democrat Hillary Clinton vowed to guard abortion rights — solely 45% of voters mentioned abortion was “essential” to their vote, in contrast with 84% who cited the economic system and 80% who mentioned their high challenge was terrorism. Out of 14 high points that yr, abortion ranked 13th within the ballot from the Pew Analysis Middle.

What does it imply for the long run? In 2022, in response to an evaluation by KFF pollsters, help for abortion rights might have helped Democrats soften their anticipated midterm losses. As abortion has surfaced extra in headlines, the difficulty has develop into extra salient for voters of each events.

State and federal lawmakers, emboldened by the court docket’s resolution, might should be extra cautious in deciding the right way to legislate on abortion-related issues in 2023. The voters are watching.

HealthBent, an everyday function of Kaiser Well being News, gives perception and evaluation of insurance policies and politics from KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, who has lined well being take care of greater than 30 years.