WASHINGTON (AP) — In one of the biggest days of this year’s primary campaign season, voters rejected a measure that would have made it easier to restrict abortion rights in red-state Kansas and repudiated a scandal-tarred former governor seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Missouri.

Meanwhile, a Republican congressman who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection lost to a Trump-backed opponent early Wednesday, while two other impeachment-supporting House Republicans awaited results in their primaries in Washington state.

In Michigan, a political newcomer emerged from the state’s messy Republican gubernatorial primary, setting up a rare woman-vs.-woman general election matchup between conservative commentator Tudor Dixon and incumbent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Takeaways from election results Tuesday night:

RED-STATE KANSAS REJECTS ANTI-ABORTION AMENDMENT

Kansas may seem like an unlikely place for abortion rights supporters to notch a major victory.

But on Tuesday, voters in the conservative state resoundingly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Legislature to ban abortion. It was the first major test of voter sentiment since the Supreme Court ruling in June to rescind the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The amendment would have allowed the Legislature to overturn a 2019 state Supreme Court decision declaring access to abortion a “fundamental” right under the state constitution.

Its failure at the ballot in a state Donald Trump won by nearly 15 points issues a stark warning to Republicans, who have downplayed the political impact of the high court’s ruling. It also hands a considerable win to Democrats, who are feeling newly energized heading into what was expected to be a tough midterm election season for them.

Kansas currently allows abortion until the 22nd week of pregnancy. After that, abortion is allowed only to save a patient’s life or to prevent “a substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, has warned that the Republican-led Legislature’s efforts to ban abortion would hurt the state. On Tuesday it became clear that many voters agree with her.

TRUMP’S REVENGE

First-term Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer was one of 10 Republicans who joined Democrats to vote in favor of impeaching Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. On Tuesday, he became the latest victim of the former president’s revenge campaign.

Meijer, an heir to a Midwestern grocery store empire and a former Army reserve officer who served in Iraq, lost the GOP contest to former Trump administration official John Gibbs.

“I’m proud to have remained true to my principles, even when doing so came at a significant political cost,” Meijer said in a statement.

Besides having Trump’s endorsement, Gibbs also shared Trump’s penchant for conspiracy theories: He parroted Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election and once spread false claims that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chair participated in a satanic ritual that involved bodily fluids.

But Gibbs also drew support from an unusual source: House Democrats’ campaign arm spent nearly $500,000 in the final week of the race on ads that played up his ties to Trump and labeled him “too conservative.” It was a ploy by the Democrats to boost a general election candidate who they believe will give Democrat Hillary Scholten a better chance of winning in the general election.

Meijer is the second of the 10 impeachment-supporting Republicans to lose his primary, joining South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice, who was defeated by a Trump-backed challenger in June. Four others opted to retire rather than face voters’ wrath. And, so far, only California Rep. David Valadao has survived — just barely.

Also on the ballot Tuesday were Washington state Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse, who both faced Trump-backed challengers over their impeachment votes. But those contests were too early to call because Washington state conducts elections by mail, delaying the reporting of results.

Herrera Beutler’s challengers include Joe Kent, a former Green Beret who has cultivated links to right-wing extremist groups and employs a campaign aide who was a member of the Proud Boys. Newhouse’s opponents include Loren Culp, a former GOP gubernatorial nominee who falsely claimed that his 13-point loss to Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee in 2020 was the result of voter fraud.

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TRUMP’S SLATE

Trump’s candidates in Arizona had a successful primary night.

Senate candidate Blake Masters, whose campaign was bankrolled by tech investor Peter Thiel, won his Republican primary after echoing Trump’s lies of a stolen election and playing up cultural grievances that animate the right, including critical race theory and allegations of big tech censorship.

In the secretary of state race, Mark Finchem, an Arizona state lawmaker who worked to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss in the state, defeated three challengers, including an establishment-backed rival.

In the state Legislature, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who testified at a Jan. 6 committee hearing about Trump’s pressure to overturn the 2020 election, lost his Republican primary for a state Senate seat to a Trump-backed former lawmaker, David Farnsworth.

The Republican gubernatorial contest between former TV news anchor Kari Lake, who was backed by Trump, and businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson, who was endorsed by Trump’s estranged vice president, Mike Pence, was too early to call on Wednesday, with Lake and Robson separated by a slim margin. Lake has aggressively promoted Trump’s election lies.

Arizona has emerged as a key swing state. But it also carries significance to Trump after Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate in decades to carry what was once a reliably Republican state.

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GREITENS’ COMEBACK COLLAPSES

Democratic hopes of picking up a U.S. Senate seat in deep-red Missouri faltered Tuesday after Republican voters selected Attorney General Eric Schmitt as their nominee over former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned in disgrace in 2018.

Greitens, they predicted, would be toxic in a general election. Democrats landed a strong recruit in beer heir Trudy Busch Valentine, who won her primary Tuesday. And the state’s Republican establishment prepared to put millions of dollars behind an independent candidate in the general election, potentially fracturing the GOP vote.

But Greitens came up short Tuesday, finishing a distant third behind Schmitt and U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler. His campaign’s tailspin can likely be traced back to March, when his ex-wife submitted a bombshell legal filing in the former couple’s child custody case.

Sheena Greitens said in a sworn statement that Eric Greitens had abused her and one of their young sons. She also said he displayed such “unstable and coercive behavior” in the lead-up to his 2018 resignation that others took steps to limit his access to firearms.

At the time, Greitens faced potential impeachment after his former hairdresser testified that he blindfolded and restrained her in his basement, assaulted her and appeared to take a compromising photo to pressure her to keep quiet about an affair.

He resigned from office — and avoided testifying under oath about the affair.

He launched his comeback campaign for Senate last year, marketing himself as an unabashedly pro-Trump conservative. And while many in Missouri wrote him off, one important political figure didn’t: Donald Trump, who mused publicly about Greitens’ attributes.

But in the end, Trump stopped short of issuing an endorsement, instead issuing a vague statement this week throwing his support behind “ERIC.”

And on Tuesday, the other “ERIC” in the race — Schmitt — won.

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MESSY RACE IN MICHIGAN

At its essence, Michigan’s raucous Republican gubernatorial primary was a contest of which candidate’s personal baggage was the least disqualifying. On Tuesday, conservative media personality Tudor Dixon was the victor, setting up a November general election against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the battleground state.

Dixon’s past as an actor in a series of vulgar and low-budget horror movies became a campaign issue. But her career moonlighting in titles such as “Buddy BeBop Vs. the Living Dead” and a vampire TV series called “Transitions” paled in comparison to her rivals’ problems.

One rival, Ryan Kelley, faces federal misdemeanor charges after he was recorded on video in Washington during the Jan. 6 insurrection directing a mob of Trump supporters toward a set of stairs leading to the U.S. Capitol. Kelley has pleaded not guilty.

Another, Kevin Rinke, is a former car dealer who settled a series of lawsuits in the 1990s after he was alleged to have made racist and sexist comments, which included calling women “ignorant and stupid” and stating that they “should not be allowed to work in public.”

A third, Garrett Soldano, is a chiropractor and self-help guru who has sold supplements he falsely claimed were a therapeutic treatment for the coronavirus.

Many in the state’s Republican establishment, including billionaire former Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos, view Dixon as their best shot at defeating Whitmer. Trump endorsed Dixon in the race Friday, just a few days before the primary.

But her primary victory is an outcome few would have predicted months ago. In addition to the shortcomings of her rivals, her path was cleared when the two best-known candidates in the race were kicked off the ballot in May for submitting false petition signatures.

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By Sarah Simon

This is shaping up to be a record year for abortion restrictions. At least 561 laws, including 165 bans, have been introduced across 47 states in 2021, according to the Guttmacher Institute.  At least 90 new restrictions have been enacted, including the harshest to date, Texas Senate Bill 8. 

Effective September 1, Texas law prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected — at about six weeks and before many women even know they’re pregnant. Under the law, private citizens can now sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.

The avalanche of restrictions, especially in the South and Midwest, has forced women to travel across state lines to terminate a pregnancy. The new Texas law is sure to accelerate the trend. In this atmosphere, Kansas — once Ground Zero for anti-abortion protests and violence — has become an unlikely destination for abortion. 

Fifty percent of abortion care in Kansas is provided to out-of-staters, the second-highest rate in the country after Washington, D.C., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A constitutional right to choose

Kansas may not be the first place that comes to mind for abortion care. Wichita is headquarters for Operation Rescue, a 35-year-old organization that rose to fame by organizing noisy protests outside abortion clinics and “screaming threats and prayers” to everyone who entered.

The state has imposed a long list of abortion restrictions, such as obligatory “abortion counseling,” waiting periods and parental consent requirement for minors. But in a landmark decision, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” guaranteed in the state Constitution, protects a woman’s right to make decisions about her body, including whether to carry or end a pregnancy.

The ruling has made abortion more accessible in Kansas than in its neighboring states to the south and southeast. The Center for Reproductive Rights projects that abortion would remain legal in Kansas even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. In May, the high court agreed to hear arguments on a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks — a case widely seen as a major national test of Roe. 

“There’s a lot of places in the country that are already existing in a post-Roe framework,” said Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, interim communications director at Trust Women, a reproductive health care provider in Wichita. “Access is just functionally nonexistent. Getting the services you need is dependent on your ability to come up with the resources to travel someplace else.” 

Trust Women was founded in 2009 with the aim of providing access to reproductive health care in underserved areas. In addition to Wichita, the group has a clinic in Oklahoma City.

Its name and mission commemorate Dr. George Richard Tiller, a Kansas physician and abortion provider. His clinic was firebombed; he was shot by an anti-abortion extremist in the 1990s; and he was assassinated by another extremist in a church on May 31, 2009. Ms. Magazine that summer remembered him as “A Man Who Trusted Women.”

From 2019 to 2020, Kansas saw a significant jump in the number of people crossing state lines for abortion care. Seventy-four patients came from Arkansas, up from 40; 277 from Oklahoma, up from 85; and 289 from Texas, up from 25 just a year earlier, Gingrich-Gaylord said.

The increases were influenced by the pandemic. States including Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama limited abortion access in March 2020, deeming the procedure “non-essential.”

But Dr. Christina Bourne, a family medicine resident at Trust Women, anticipates that patient volume from other states will continue to grow in the face of ever-tighter abortion restrictions. And more women will come in later in pregnancy. 

Costs, barriers fuel racial inequities

Since Kansas and its neighbors restrict insurance coverage of abortion, Bourne says, a lot of the people she sees must come up with the money on their own. And not only money for the procedure – which can cost at least $650 (although abortion funds from organizations such as such as Access Reproductive Care (ARC)-Southeast can help) – but also money for child care and transportation. If somebody is over 18 weeks pregnant, it’s often a two-day procedure, so there are lodging costs. 

“We’re just consistently putting up insurmountable barriers for people, especially people who are poor, Black or Brown,” Bourne said. “It’s really just making it pretty impossible.”

A recent study found that out of 10,000 people seeking assistance from ARC-Southeast from 2017 to 2019, 81% were Black, 87% were uninsured or publicly insured, and 77% already had at least one child.

Bourne remembers a woman from Lafayette, Louisiana, whose story is “symbolic of mass amounts of inequity and injustice that we’re experiencing in terms of health care access.”

The woman had tried to obtain birth control but couldn’t afford it without health insurance, which her job didn’t offer. She found out she was six weeks pregnant and, with two children already, felt she couldn’t support another. She sought abortion care close to home, but in a state rife with restrictions, she couldn’t get an appointment.

With states bordering Louisiana having similar restrictions, the woman tried getting care in Oklahoma, but faced a long wait for an appointment. The next best place was Wichita, more than 700 miles away. 

“She jumped through so many hoops to get this done,” Bourne said.

Not everyone can jump through numerous hoops and still manage to get care in time. What will happen if the Supreme Court overturns Roe or other states follow the lead of Texas, making it all but impossible for more women to get abortion care close to home?

Even if patients can travel to a clinic like Trust Women Wichita, will it have room for them?

Gingrich-Gaylord says Trust Women will try to be available for as many people as it can and work with abortion funders from across the region to help support patients in need. “Whether that’s travel funds or funds for the procedures,” he says, “we’re not going to turn anybody away for lack of ability to pay.”

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