Abortion on the ballot in 2026 produced a decisive verdict: voters in three of the four states that weighed abortion-related measures chose to protect access, while only one state moved to keep its restrictions in place. Ballot measures enshrining a constitutional right to abortion passed in Nevada and Virginia, and Missouri voters rejected an effort to repeal the abortion rights they had written into their state constitution two years earlier. Idaho was the lone exception, where voters turned down a proposition that would have expanded access in a state with one of the nation’s strictest bans.
These findings derive from KFF’s analysis of the NORC Civic Health and Elections Project, a survey of the 2026 midterm electorate conducted across the country and in all 50 states between Oct. 28 and Nov. 3. KFF added supplemental questions to examine how abortion shaped voters’ decisions in Idaho, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia — the four states that featured abortion-related ballot measures this cycle.
The pattern across those states points to a consistent political reality: when abortion appears directly on the ballot, a majority of voters in most states have sided with protecting access, and the issue has proven capable of driving turnout on its own.
Voters Protect Abortion Rights in Nevada, Virginia and Missouri
In Nevada and Virginia, measures establishing a constitutional right to abortion passed with broad support that crossed party lines. In Nevada, the measure passed for the second consecutive general election — a requirement for citizen-proposed constitutional amendments in the state after it first passed in 2024 — with 47% of Republican voters backing it. In Virginia, 35% of Republicans voted yes. In Nevada, 44% of voters who backed the Republican candidate for governor also supported the abortion rights measure.
Missouri presented the most consequential test. The Republican-led legislature placed Amendment 3 on the ballot to repeal the constitutional right to abortion voters approved in 2024 and to add a constitutional prohibition on gender-affirming care for minors. Voters rejected it, with 56% voting no, preserving the 2024 amendment that guarantees abortion up to fetal viability.
| State | Measure | Outcome | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nevada | Question 6 | Passed | Constitutional right to abortion enshrined |
| Virginia | Question 1 | Passed | Constitutional right to abortion enshrined |
| Missouri | Amendment 3 | Rejected (56% no) | 2024 constitutional right to abortion preserved |
| Idaho | Proposition 1 | Rejected | Near-total abortion ban remains in place |
Missouri Rejects Combined Amendment on Abortion and Gender-Affirming Care
Missouri’s Amendment 3 forced voters to weigh two separate issues in a single vote: repealing the 2024 abortion rights amendment and writing a ban on gender-affirming care for minors — described on the ballot as “gender-transition” treatment — into the state constitution. Asked about each part separately, 58% of Missouri voters said they oppose repealing the right to abortion, while 62% said they support prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors.
But when asked which issue mattered more to their vote, voters were more than five times as likely to name abortion policy (45%) than gender-affirming care for minors (8%), with 45% saying both mattered equally. Among voters who rejected the amendment, 59% said abortion policy was the more important issue; among those who supported it, 60% said both issues were equally important.
The partisan breakdown was stark: 71% of Republicans voted yes on Amendment 3, while 85% of Democrats and 72% of independents voted no. Fewer than half of women of reproductive age (43%) supported the measure. Still, motivation ran in the other direction — at least half of no voters said the measure had a major impact on their decision to vote, a pattern consistent with recent elections in which abortion has mobilized Democratic voters more than Republicans.
Idaho Stands Alone in Rejecting Expanded Access
Idaho was the only state of the four where voters rejected a measure that would have expanded abortion access. Proposition 1 would have established a right to abortion in a state with a near-total ban, but it failed. Democratic voters overwhelmingly supported it, including a vast majority of Democratic women, while 80% of Republican voters — including similar shares of Republican women — rejected it. Women of reproductive age were split almost evenly, with about half voting yes and half no.
The result leaves Idaho with its existing near-total abortion ban, making it the outlier in a cycle where voters in three other states moved to lock in abortion protections at the constitutional level.
Abortion Measures Drove Turnout in All Four States
No fewer than three in ten voters in each of the four states reported that the abortion ballot measure in their state had a “major impact” on their decision to vote in the 2026 election. In Idaho, Missouri and Nevada, supporters of abortion access were more likely than opponents to say the measure drove their turnout. Virginia was the exception: there, voters opposing abortion access were more likely than supporters to say the measure majorly impacted their decision to vote.
In Missouri specifically, about four in ten voters overall said the measure had a major impact on their decision to vote, including 51% of women of reproductive age and 54% of Democratic voters. Just over half of Missouri parents (53%) voted yes on the amendment, and 43% of parents said it had a major impact on their turnout.
Missouri’s Statutory Restrictions on Gender-Affirming Care Expire in 2027
Rejecting Amendment 3 leaves Missouri’s constitutional right to abortion intact, but it also leaves in place, for now, the state’s statutory restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. The hormone and drug-related portions of that law are set to expire in August 2027, meaning the legislature could revisit those restrictions separately now that the constitutional amendment combining the two issues has failed.
In Nevada, the passage of Question 6 in two consecutive elections completes the process required for the constitutional amendment to take effect. In Virginia, the newly enshrined right joins a growing list of states where voters have directly decided abortion policy at the ballot box. What remains unresolved is whether Idaho’s electorate will again be asked to weigh in on expanding access, and how Missouri lawmakers will approach gender-affirming care restrictions when the statutory provisions lapse in 2027.
