It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We started yesterday's show

as some of you will remember by looking closely at the movement to enshrine abortion rights

in Republican states using ballot measures, referendums, where red state legislatures

have been passing very restrictive abortion laws. Well, they had this referendum against the

referendum in Ohio yesterday and that measure lost by 14 points. They failed the Republicans

did to make it harder to pass the upcoming abortion rights referendum. 57% voted against

making it harder to pass the referendum to just 43% with nearly all the votes now counted.

And a breakdown of some of that from the New York Times shows the power of abortion rights

as an issue that reshaped selections. That's the way they frame it. Nearly twice as many people voted

on this ballot measure, then cast ballots in primaries for Governor, Senate, House,

and other marquee statewide races last year, says the Times, so the issue had major turnout power.

And on the percentages in both Democratic and Republican parts of the state,

the Times notes that in Athens, Ohio, for example, the Democratic Bastion, the home of Ohio University,

voters opposed this measure to make it harder to pass the abortion rights measure by 71%.

Last fall, former representative Tim Ryan, the Democratic candidate for Senate, got 61%.

So abortion rights, in effect, got 10 more points than Tim Ryan, who was pretty popular among Democrats.

And the Times says there were signs that moderate and even some conservative voters were against the idea

of making referendum harder to pass. Last November, 66% of voters in Defiance County,

a conservative area in the northwest corner of the state, backed Republican JD Vance for Senate,

only 61% supported the proposal to amend the state constitution yesterday.

So in a conservative area, abortion rights, in effect, were five points more popular,

and with a big majority, 66%, then they're new very, let me reframe that a little bit.

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