The irony of women voting for abortion rights — and Trump

When it came to their ballot choices on Tuesday, many of the same women who voted to enshrine reproductive rights in their state constitutions also voted to return to the White House the man responsible for stripping them of that right, Donald Trump.

Abortion rights were on the ballot in 10 states, and voters in seven of them — Missouri, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, New York and Montana — either expanded existing protections or reversed restrictions imposed by conservative legislatures after the fall of Roe v. Wade. The exception was Florida, which had unique complications.

According to national exit polls, most women voters supported Vice President Kamala Harris. But 45% of all women supported Trump — and 57% of them said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Millions of women leapt past any obligation to hold Trump accountable for curtailing their constitutional right to abortion but voted to prevent the government from controlling what they do with their bodies.

It’s a testament to the virtues of direct democracy and the ability of citizens to enact proposals that have been ignored by unresponsive legislatures. It’s also ironic. These amendments were not only an outlet for women who don’t want Trump-inspired government sanctions to interfere in their reproductive decisions, but they also let Trump off the hook.

Trump’s position on abortion has been all over the board since he aligned himself with evangelical Christians in his first term and appointed the Supreme Court justices who reversed 54 years of legal precedent.

A year ago, he told supporters he was “proud to be the most pro-life president in American history.” But then, as polls showed how unpopular his position had become, he began to pivot away from the issue. By the time the Republican National Convention came around in July, Trump had stripped the party’s platform of its anti-abortion position. On Oct. 1, he claimed he would veto any federal abortion ban.

Voters not only didn’t punish Trump for his constant flip-flops on the issue, but according to an NBC News exit poll, only 14% of voters considered abortion the most critical issue when casting their votes. The state of democracy (34%) and the economy (32%) ranked as the most important considerations.

Trump’s ambiguity on the issue helps explain the results in states like Missouri, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Nearly 60% of Missouri voters supported Trump, but 52% of voters approved a constitutional amendment legalizing abortion up to fetal viability, which is usually around 24 weeks.

Trump voters also split their tickets in Montana, where the state’s Republican-led legislature had attempted to restrict abortion, but the courts blocked the effort. As 59% of Montana’s voters backed Trump, 57% of them also voted to put abortion protections into the state constitution.

Similar trends emerged in Arizona and Nevada. Arizona voters overturned strict abortion restrictions and voted to allow the procedure up until fetal viability. In Nevada, where abortion is already legal until fetal viability, voters approved an amendment to add the protection to the state constitution. The measure needs to pass again in 2026 to become law.

In Nebraska, which had dueling measures on the ballot, voters rejected an amendment that would have allowed abortion until fetal viability but approved one that allows abortion up until 12 weeks. Only in South Dakota did voters reject an abortion rights amendment, affirming one of the strictest bans in the country.

Voters in three other states — Colorado, Maryland, and New York — strengthened existing abortion protections but also rejected Trump.

The exception, of course, was Florida, where 57% of Floridians voted for an amendment that would have repealed the state’s strict six-week abortion ban. That margin would have been a victory in any other state, but Florida’s Republican-led legislature, threatened by citizen-led initiatives they disagreed with, pushed a constitutional provision in 2006 to raise the threshold for such amendments to 60%.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis used that loophole to repair his conservative credentials after his embarrassing loss to Trump in the Republican presidential primary. In an act that courts said was illegal, he ordered state agencies to use millions of taxpayer dollars to campaign against the abortion amendment. His staff harassed petition-gathering firms, threatened TV executives with arrest for running ads supporting the amendment, and resorted to lies and distortions.

Republican officials in other states also tried to undermine abortion-rights amendments in their states. State officials in Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota all launched unsuccessful legal challenges to keep voters from deciding the issue.

As Trump prepares to return to office in January, he remains under pressure to restrict abortion. From members of the religious right to the growing group of Christian nationalists in Congress and the Project 2025 crowd, all have declared that abortions “are not health care” and want a ban on the abortion pill mifepristone. We have no guarantee that Trump won’t switch his position again.

Trump may have promised to let states decide how to handle the issue of abortion, but Republicans instead have consistently chosen authoritarian rule. It’s a frightening harbinger of what could be ahead for women under another Trump administration.

Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades.