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It’s been a tiring, surprising, news-heavy week, and I’m not looking to overwhelm your internet tabs any more — but I did want to send over the story I published today. The elections were really such a remarkable night for abortion rights, in many ways that we’re still beginning to fully understand.
One of those ways though was the clean sweep of victories abortion rights had on the ballot initiatives everywhere they appeared (Michigan, Montana, Kentucky, California and Vermont) on top of Kansas in August.
I spoke with leaders of the campaigns from all these states to learn how they built winning coalitions that included Republicans, “pro-life” voters, and others who personally have complicated (or negative) feelings about abortion. I looked at why pro-choice leaders have historically avoided ballot measures, but now see them as an important battleground for protecting access.
While it’s easy to paint with broad strokes — I keep hearing “when abortion is on the ballot, abortion wins!” — that’s not really true, and I’d say that conceals a lot of the really hard, strategic work organizers have been doing in each state to win these fights. You can read that here.
One question for readers: Are you a parent (or know other parents) who've had difficulty getting a spot for your child in after-school care? Do you send your child to after-school programming? Would love to talk to talk if so for something I’m researching.
I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with this newsletter when I took the job at Vox, and I’m still not totally sure about it for the future, but with Elon Musk driving Twitter fast into the ground, I’m glad this still exists as a way to distribute the work. Thank you for reading and your support.