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Practically and politically, however, the defeat of the ballot initiative known as Issue 1 was all about abortion, giving reproductive-rights advocates the latest in a series of victories in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Fearing the passage of an abortion-rights amendment in November, Republicans in Ohio asked voters to approve a proposal that would raise the threshold for enacting a change to the state constitution, which currently requires a simple majority vote. The measure on the ballot today would have lifted the threshold to 60 percent.
Ohio voters, turning out in unusually large numbers for a summertime special election, declined. Their decision was a rare victory for Democrats in a state that Republicans have dominated, and it suggests that abortion remains a strong motivator for voters heading into next year’s presidential election. The Ohio results could spur abortion-rights advocates to ramp up their efforts to circumvent Republican-controlled state legislatures by placing the issue directly before voters. They have reason to feel good about their chances: Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, statewide abortion-rights ballot measures have been undefeated, winning in blue states such as Vermont and California as well as in red states such as Kansas and Kentucky.
In Kansas last summer, an 18-point victory by the abortion-rights side stunned members of both parties in a socially conservative state. By the final day of voting in Ohio, however, the defeat of Issue 1 could no longer be called a surprise. For weeks, Democrats who had become accustomed to disappointment in Ohio watched early-voting numbers soar in the state’s large urban and suburban counties. If Republicans had hoped to catch voters napping by scheduling the election for the dog days of August, they miscalculated. As I traveled the state recently, I saw vote no signs in front yards and outside churches in areas far from major cities, and progressive organizers told me that volunteers were signing up to knock on doors at levels unheard of for a summer campaign. The opposition extended to some independent and Republican voters, who saw the proposal as taking away their rights. “It’s this ‘Don’t tread on me’ moment where voters are being activated,” says Catherine Turcer, the executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a good-government advocacy group that helped lead the effort to defeat the amendment.
Opponents of Issue 1 assembled a bipartisan coalition that included two former Republican governors. They focused their message broadly, appealing to voters to “protect majority rule” and stop a brazen power grab by the legislature. But the special election’s obvious link to this fall’s abortion referendum in Ohio drove people to the polls, particularly women and younger voters. “Voters don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the Ohio constitution. They probably don’t spend a ton of time thinking about voting rights,” Turcer told me. But, she said, “the attempt to dilute voter power so that it would impact a vote on reproductive rights made it really concrete, and that was important.”
Voters in South Dakota and Arkansas last year rejected similar GOP-driven efforts to make ballot initiatives harder to pass. But Ohio’s status as a large former swing state that has turned red over the past decade posed a unique test for Democrats who are desperate to revive their party in the state. “We’ve been beat in Ohio a lot,” Dennis Willard, a longtime party operative in the state who served as the lead spokesperson for the No campaign, told me. That Republicans tried to pass this amendment, he said, “is a testament to them believing that they’re invincible and that we cannot beat them.”
The defeat of Issue 1 likely clears the way for voters this fall to guarantee abortion access in Ohio, and it will keep open an avenue for progressives to enshrine, with a simple majority vote, other policies in the state constitution—including marijuana legalization and a higher minimum wage—that they could not get through a legislature controlled by Republicans. Democrats, including Willard, are eying an amendment to curb the gerrymandering that has helped the GOP lock in their majorities. They also hope that tonight’s victory will put Ohio back on the political map. “Us winning sends a message to the rest of the country that Ohio has possibilities,” Willard said. “And winning in November demonstrates to people that you can’t write Ohio off anymore.”
For the moment, though, the GOP is in little danger of losing its hold on the state. It controls supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature; the Republican governor, Mike DeWine, trounced his Democratic opponent by 25 points last year to win a second term. One Ohio Republican, speaking anonymously before today’s election, told me that the defeat of Issue 1 and the expected passage of the reproductive-rights amendment in November could actually help the party next year, because voters might no longer believe that abortion access is in danger in the state. (The GOP performed better last year in blue states such as New York and California, where abortion rights were not under serious threat.)
Republicans in Ohio, and in other states where similar ballot measures have flopped, are now confronting the limits of their power and the point at which voters will rebel. Will they be chastened and recalibrate, or will they continue to push the boundaries? It’s a question the proponents of Issue 1 did not want to contemplate before the votes confirming their defeat were counted. Their critics, however, are doubtful that Republicans will shift their strategy. “It’s unlikely that they will stop right away,” Turcer said. “It will take a number of defeats before they’re likely to understand that voters do not want to be taken advantage of.”
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