Ahead of Tuesday’s election, Democrats were wary—yet confident. Abortion access was on the ballot in Ohio, and ostensibly in Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. “I think it can’t be overstated how high the stakes are…. You have to remember, we’re the state that had the 10-year-old rape victim,” Ohio congresswoman Shontel Brown told Vanity Fair that morning, referencing the story that grabbed national attention of a young girl who had to travel across state lines to Indiana to receive an abortion following a sexual assault. “We know that Ohio has often been a barometer and a test case for the country.”

Then, just after 9 p.m., the Associated Press called the vote for Issue 1 in the Buckeye State; the ballot initiative enshrining the right to an abortion in the state constitution had passed with 56.6% of the vote. It was a striking rebuke to Republicans in the state who passed a six-week ban, without exceptions, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. “The future is bright, and tonight we can celebrate this win for bodily autonomy and reproductive rights,” Lauren Blauvelt, who works for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio and cochairs Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, told supporters when the results were called. Ohio is the seventh state overall to vote to protect abortion access but the first red-leaning state since the Dobbs decision to vote to codify it into the state constitution.

Issue 1 was just one of a handful of victories Democrats picked up Tuesday night. The ballot measure’s passage also underscored the enduring saliency of abortion access as a motivating issue for voters. “Let me say this. I don’t want to hear from another pollster or out-of-touch pundit that abortion isn’t a winning issue,” a reproductive rights advocate told VF, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “The voters keep showing you, in some of the most red states, that it’s not only a winning issue, but it will turn people out to vote. People want to make decisions about their own bodies—fucking look around.” 

In deep red Kentucky, Democrat Andy Beshear glided to reelection as governor. Winning 52.5% of the vote to 47.5%, Beshear beat Daniel Cameron after a grueling contest in which abortion emerged as a key issue. Cameron, backed by Donald Trump and once hailed as a rising star in the Republican Party, had a series of stumbles on the trail. After initially campaigning on his antiabortion record and defending Kentucky’s strict abortion ban—one of the harshest in the country—the Republican state attorney general said, during a radio interview, that if elected governor, he would sign a bill that added exceptions for rape and incest to the existing ban.

Afterward, Cameron sought to clarify his stance, arguing that he would only sign such legislation if mandated by the judiciary. He was recorded by an undercover operative sent by American Bridge at a campaign stop saying,  “My point was that…we are in a fight with the courts right now. And so if the courts were to strike down and say that we needed to add (exceptions), of course I would sign that because I still want to protect life. But that would just be based on if our courts made that change; it wouldn’t be me, proactively.” In a later interview, Cameron said, “[If] the court or somebody made a judgment that we had to add exceptions, and our legislature put those in, of course I would sign it.”

As Cameron flip-flopped, he drew criticism from his right flank. “We’re seeing some elected leaders who were staunchly pro-life before, reading the polls, or what they think the polls say, and some are watering down their views for political reasons,” Sue Swayze Liebel, state affairs director and midwest regional director of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, reportedly said of the Republican’s shifting stance.

All the while, Beshear sought to cast Cameron’s views as extreme and out of step with voters. (Notably, in 2022, Kentuckians voted against a ballot measure that would have amended the state constitution to ban abortion entirely.) In one particularly poignant campaign ad, rape victim Hadley Duvall detailed her trauma at the hands of her stepfather and criticized Cameron’s abortion record. “Daniel Cameron said himself that he cannot comprehend how traumatic the experience was for me,” she said in an interview with the Associated Press last month. “And he’s right. So I just want to know why he feels so entitled to force victims who have stories like mine to carry a baby of their rapist? It should be their choice.” During his victory speech on Tuesday night, Beshear thanked Duvall directly for her support.

In Virginia, Democrats maintained control of the state Senate and flipped the House of Delegates. While one race remains uncalled, as of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats held a three-seat margin in both the Virginia House of Delegates and state Senate. The fear, ahead of Tuesday night, was that Republicans would win both chambers of the Virginia state legislature—gaining complete control of the state government and paving the way for Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s agenda. As I previously reported, Democrats in the state called on the national Democratic Party and the White House over the summer to pay greater attention to the Virginia elections, arguing that Youngkin, who has been propped up as a potential alternative to Trump in 2024, posed a real threat given his influence within the commonwealth and his fundraising chops. “I’m a little bit amazed that this isn’t a higher priority…at the White House,” Virginia senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, told VF in August.

Warner warned that Youngkin was not one to underestimate. Had Republicans won a trifecta on Tuesday night, the fear was that abortion access would be restricted, if not fully banned, as Youngkin has shifted his position on abortion from seeking a 15- to 20-week ban to saying he will sign “any bill…to protect life.” As Senator Tim Kaine put it to VF, “Make no mistake: If Republicans are successful in 2023, they will continue pushing their extreme agenda in 2024 and beyond.”

Democrats’ success on Tuesday night comes amid escalating fears surrounding Joe Biden’s reelection odds prompted by troubling polls in which Biden is shown trailing Donald Trump in key battleground states. But in the wake of the results, the Biden camp was zealous in their defense of the president’s agenda—specifically on reproductive rights.

“Tonight, Americans once again voted to protect their fundamental freedoms—and democracy won,” Biden said in a statement from the White House. “Ohioans and voters across the country rejected attempts by MAGA Republican elected officials to impose extreme abortion bans that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors and nurses for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide.”

The statement continued, “This extreme and dangerous agenda is out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans. My administration will continue to protect access to reproductive health care and call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law once and for all.” 

The elections across the country on Tuesday have been cast as a harbinger of whether or not Biden will win back the White House and which party will win the US House and Senate. For instance, in Ohio, the vote on Issue 1 has been tied tightly to Democratic senator Sherrod Brown’s reelection bid next year. Seen as one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection, Brown’s success or failure in 2024 could determine if Democrats hold on to their majority in the Senate—a majority that, albeit slim, could serve as a bulwark against a national abortion ban if Republicans win the House and Trump beats Biden.

Reproductive rights advocates are adamant that Republicans’ attacks on access will prove to be the party’s downfall in 2024. And according to public opinion polls, abortion continues to be a motivating issue for voters. A Navigator poll conducted by Impact Research of likely general election voters in 61 battleground congressional districts found that 64% of voters think abortion should be legal in all or some circumstances, according to data provided to VF. In contrast, just 6% think it should be completely illegal. Meanwhile, a majority of voters opposed overturning Roe v. Wade, and nearly 60% support a law that would protect abortion nationwide—including 47% who would strongly support such a law.

“We’ve said it before, and we will say it again: When abortion is on the ballot, reproductive freedom wins,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. “Despite every effort and every dollar spent to mislead the public, voters made it clear that when given the choice, the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies, lives, and futures will always prevail.”