Hi Rulers! Happy Friday! Have ideas or feedback for me? Send them to sgardner@politico.com. Pro-abortion activists are celebrating a victory in Ohio. But the state's fight over abortion is just beginning. On Tuesday, Ohioans voted down a proposal, called Issue 1, that would have made it more difficult to pass constitutional amendments, requiring a 60 percent threshold of support as opposed to the current simple majority. If passed, the change would have had major implications for a proposed amendment to enshrine abortion rights into the constitution, up for a vote in November. The proposed amendment states that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions” – including “contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.” It also states that abortion “may be prohibited after fetal viability,” which is generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks. The August Issue 1 election, which turned out over 38 percent of voters in a notoriously low-turn-out month, has pro-abortion activists feeling confident. Anti-abortion activists say not so fast. Tuesday’s defeat has sparked something of an identity crisis within the state’s anti-abortion movement – with some suggesting that advocates soften their stance to appeal to a wider audience. But there’s one thing they can agree on: it’s time to expand their outreach efforts. “Our work is just ramping up in Ohio, and will really reach its peak in October,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life America, tells Women Rule. Her organization is planning tours of dozens of colleges across the state, “particularly Christian college campuses” to register students to vote and try to persuade them to vote against the amendment. Amy Natoce, press secretary for the anti-abortion group Protect Women Ohio, says the Issue 1 vote “really underlined the amount of out of state spending we can expect to see coming into the state in November” from the pro-abortion side. Protect Our Constitution, the group supporting Issue 1, spent about $2.5 million on ad buys, and Protect Women Ohio also launched a 5.5 million ad campaign in support. The One Person One Vote coalition opposing Issue 1 spent about $12.4 million, according to Columbus Dispatch reporting. Natoce says that’s made the anti-abortion supporters “more eager to fight this battle in November,” noting that her organization would be continuing to knock on doors until the election. “We absolutely will have to double down our efforts,” Mike Gonidakis, president of the anti-abortion group Ohio Right to Life, tells Women Rule. “We already have county coordinators in all 88 counties, but we're going to need to go from church to church and community to community explaining and expressing what this ballot initiative is.” Gonidakis also says that he “knows for a fact” that some pro-life voters voted against Issue 1. “They told us that while they're devoutly pro-life, they didn't believe changing the constitutional standards was the right way to go,” he says. “All of those voters are going to come home for November.” (Worth nothing: Tuesday’s final tally of “no” votes, 57 percent, matches up pretty closely with the number of Ohioans who support the abortion measure, 58 percent, according to recent polling.) While anti-abortion groups are hoping for a comeback, pro-abortion groups are feeling bullish on their odds in November. Pro-abortion advocate Gabriel Mann, a spokesperson for Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, tells Women Rule that he thinks the Issue 1 election indicates a strong pro-abortion base: “If you’re voting in an August special election in an odd-numbered year, you’re someone who’s always paying attention to what’s happening in politics. You’re tuned-in,” he says. “We've got them as the base to build on for November. They're the people who never miss an election, so we know that they're coming out to vote – and they're also going to be the ones who are having those conversations with their friends, their families, their neighbors.” He also noted that Ohio’s amendment is not the first of its kind. Elections in a handful of states, including Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan and Montana, have resulted in pro-abortion victories. Ohio voted for Trump in 2016 and in 2020, has a Republican governor and has veto-proof Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. Ashley All, who helped lead the successful Kansas campaign to defeat an anti-abortion rights ballot measure last summer, says she isn’t too worried about the state’s Republican electorate. “For most Kansans, it wasn't a partisan issue,” she tells Women Rule. “It was a very personal and often a healthcare related issue … I'm not terribly concerned. We've seen that people are motivated by this issue.” Mann also expects her side to win in November, but also noted that the pro-abortion movement has no plans to let up on their organizing efforts. “There’s definitely a difference between being confident and taking it for granted. And we've never once taken this for granted,” he says.
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