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Voters Reject Abortion Bans, Back Millionaires Tax
· Confirmed
In Short: Voters in Virginia and Missouri overwhelmingly passed ballot measures protecting abortion rights, while Florida voters approved a significant property tax cut.
In Washington State, voters rejected Initiative 638, which would have banned males who identify as female from playing on girls’ sports teams, according to Breitbart. Meanwhile, voters in Washington State also rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed the state’s millionaires tax, a 9.9% tax on annual income over $1 million, as reported by NBC News and NBC 6 South Florida.
Voters in Virginia and Missouri overwhelmingly passed ballot measures protecting abortion rights, while Florida voters approved a significant property tax cut. In Virginia, voters approved a constitutional amendment ensuring the fundamental right to make and carry out decisions about reproductive care, according to JusttheNews. In Missouri, a measure to reinstate an abortion ban was defeated, with Governor Mike Kehoe expressing disappointment in the outcome.
In Idaho, voters upheld the state’s strict abortion prohibition, a victory for anti-abortion advocates who lost ground in other states, as noted by NBC News. The Idaho measure, however, was an advisory question and did not change the state’s abortion laws.
In contrast, voters in Washington State rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed the state’s millionaires tax, a 9.9% tax on annual income over $1 million, according to NBC News. The measure was defeated by a margin of at least 24 percentage points, as reported by NBC News.
The number of abortions nationwide has slightly increased, largely due to the accessibility of medicated abortions, according to research firm KFF, as cited by Religionnews.
The Department of Justice has sued California to demand officials there set aside mail ballots cast by alleged noncitizen voters, as reported by MS NOW. The State Department is also assessing how to grant state and local officials access to federal passport records to verify voters' citizenship status ahead of the midterm elections.
In Texas, healthcare affordability is a top issue for voters, with Ken Paxton and James Talarico offering different approaches to address it, as reported by Fox7Austin.
Voters in 39 states decided 145 statewide measures on Tuesday, with a mixed bag of results. While Virginia and Missouri voters approved measures protecting abortion rights, California’s billionaire tax measure was trailing by 11 points, as reported by JusttheNews.
In Idaho, lawmakers hoped the advisory question on abortion would boost voter turnout, as Rep. Jason Monks, R-Meridian, suggested.
Voters nationwide were in the mood for change, with roughly three-quarters of voters feeling 'angry' or 'dissatisfied' with the direction of the country, according to The AP Voter Poll, as reported by PBS.
What this adds
Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, voters in most states with ballot measures on abortion have supported abortion protections or rejected abortion bans, according to OSV News.
Background
In contrast, voters in Washington State rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed the state’s so-called millionaires tax, a 9.9% tax on annual income over $1 million that Democratic lawmakers enacted just earlier this year, according to NBC News.
What's confirmed
- In Washington state, voters rejected a ballot measure that would have repealed the state’s so-called millionaires tax — a 9.9% tax on annual income over $1 million that Democratic lawmakers enacted just earlier this year.
- Abortion is already legal in Virginia until the third trimester.
What's still developing
- Since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022, resulting in each state determining its abortion laws, voters in most states with ballot measures on abortion in 2022, 2023 and 2024 have supported abortion protections or rejected abortion bans.
- Florida voters on Tuesday approved one of the largest property tax cuts in the state's history, while Virginians wrote a right to abortion into their constitution and Missouri voters turned back a Republican-led effort to repeal the abortion protections they adopted two years ago.
- According to the secretary of state's ballot language, a "yes" vote would have repealed that 2024 amendment. It would then have allowed abortion only in medical emergencies, for fetal anomalies, and in cases of rape or incest before 12 weeks. The measure also would have written a ban on gender transition procedures for minors into the constitution. Opponents held a large financial edge. They raised more than $26 million in donations of $5,000 or more this year, compared with about $6.7 million for supporters. Gov. Mike Kehoe, who campaigned for the amendment on Monday, said that its defeat would be "a sad day for Missouri."
- Concerned Women for America (CWA) found 70% of voters indicated transgender issues were an important factor in deciding their vote.
- The poll similarly suggests the issue was important to 67% of black voters, who awarded Trump an 8 point gain compared to his 2020 record in the demographic.
- Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, is urging Catholics to pray, fast, and vote “no” on two ballot measures that would protect abortion rights and repeal the state’s two-decade-old constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
- Polling on the ballot measures has been limited, although a January survey from Christopher Newport University found that two-thirds of Virginians support or strongly support access to abortion and contraception.
- In her 49-page decision, the judge said the Postal Service's new rules are likely unconstitutional and said states' difficulties with implementing the regulations so close to the November elections "nearly guarantee[s] significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters."
- In June, just two months before Kansans headed to the polls, the U.S. Supreme Court indeed overturned Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. (Kavanaugh indeed joined the five-justice majority.) Support for abortion rights spiked across the country, including in Kansas, where voters responded to Dobbs by turning out in record numbers to defeat the “Value Them Both” Amendment in an 18-point blowout.
- In November 2025, gubernatorial candidate Ty Masterson told anti-abortion voters that supreme court elections were the “solution” they’d been waiting for, as long as they had the good sense to play it cool in public.
- “Now it is incumbent upon the state to take action,” Floyd said.
- “Politicians thought they knew better than voters,” Dr. Margaret Baum, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, said as she stood before a few hundred abortion-rights supporters late Tuesday evening in St. Louis.