Even as abortion was not a top issue for voters in the midterm elections, Americans repeatedly rejected ballot initiatives and candidates they perceived as anti-abortion — a sign that reproductive rights have become a stand-in for broader questions of trust in lawmakers. In Missouri, voters rejected a ballot measure advanced by the state’s Republican leadership that would have overturned the abortion rights protections voters enshrined just two years ago. In Maine, voters turned against 30-year incumbent Republican Sen.
Susan Collins after Democrat Troy Jackson hammered her over her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court justice who helped overturn Roe v. Jackson argued that the vote demonstrated poor judgment and that Collins could not be trusted to represent her constituents’ interests. And in the Michigan Senate race, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated former Republican Rep.
Mike Rogers after leveraging attacks on Rogers’ anti-abortion voting record in the closing days of the campaign. Voters consistently ranked the economy and corruption as their top issues in the 2026 midterms, in which Democrats wrested control of both chambers of Congress and won Senate seats in conservative strongholds such as Kansas, South Carolina and Texas. Recent polling from The 19th News/YouGov poll and others found that abortion ranked low when voters were asked to identify their top electoral concerns.
But when reproductive rights appeared on the ballot — directly or as an issue in a campaign — it fit into a broader statement. The dynamic was perhaps most visible in Maine, where Democrats and outside groups including Planned Parenthood’s political arm focused their spending on advertisements highlighting abortion and reproductive rights. Older women voters — historically a key source of support for Collins — cited the Republican’s vote for Kavanaugh as disqualifying.
Then why did you do that?” said Timmaraju, who campaigned alongside Democrats in states across the country, including Michigan, Maine and Minnesota. In Michigan, El-Sayed closed his campaign with an advertisement highlighting Rogers’ record on abortion, which Michigan voters enshrined in their state constitution in 2022. Rogers responded with his own ad, saying that if elected, he would not back a federal abortion ban.
Voters in states like Michigan, she said, view opposition to abortion as “a deal-breaker.” In governors’ races across the country — notably Wisconsin and Georgia — Democrats won in part by emphasizing their willingness to protect abortion rights and highlighting their opponents’ opposition. Republicans have tried in some states to distance themselves from abortion bans — referring to the issue as a “settled matter’ in several governor’s races. Some, like Rogers, said they would not back a national ban.
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