How to Interpret the Kansas Referendum on Abortion

This episode contains mention of sexual assault.

Kansas this week became the first U.S. state since the fall of Roe v. Wade to put the question of abortion directly to the electorate.

The result was resounding. Voters chose overwhelmingly to preserve abortion rights, an outcome that could have important political reverberations for the rest of the country.

Guest: Mitch Smith, a correspondent covering the Midwest and the Great Plains for The New York Times.

Background reading:

• The defeat of the ballot measure in Kansas was the most tangible demonstration yet of a political backlash • against the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe. • The result relied on a broad coalition of voters • who turned out in huge numbers and crashed through party and geographic lines.

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