The policies that matter to voters in Missouri — and beyond

Voters across the country went for Donald Trump and other Republicans in big numbers — and endorsed progressive measures like abortion access and an increased minimum wage in ballot initiatives.

What this tells us about what voters really want.

Jason Rosenbaum, politics correspondent, St. Louis Public Radio.

Michael Strawbridge, assistant professor of political science at Washington University.

Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri.

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: In last week’s election, Missourians did what Missourians have done for the last several election cycles. They voted overwhelmingly for Republican candidates across the board – for President, for Senate, for most of their House seats, for Governor. They gave Republicans a majority in both chambers of their state legislature, too.

And then, they did something else. Missourians voted to overturn their state’s ban on abortion, and place reproductive rights in the state’s constitution.

EMILY WALES:  It felt tremendous. You know, we haven't had abortion access in Missouri at all for two years, but we haven't had abortion access in Central or Western Missouri, where we previously had health centers that offered abortion, since 2018.So after six years of no access, it is an incredible feeling to have Missourians vote to restore their rights.

CHAKRABARTI: Emily Wales is President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.

She’s talking about Missouri’s Amendment 3, which was on the ballot last week, and passed with a 51.6 % to 48.4% of the vote.

Missourians have decided to protect abortion access until fetal viability.

And while voters decisively chose to protect abortion access, they put politicians into office who oppose the very right voters enshrined.

For example, here’s Senator Josh Hawley. He won over Democrat Lucas Kunce last week 55-41. But in an October 31 debate, here’s what he said about Missouri’s Amendment 3.

JOSH HAWLEY:   I'm not gonna vote for Amendment three. And the reason is this. I mean, first of all, I'm pro life. I believe in exceptions for rape for incest and for the life of the mother. I do think that those decisions ought to be made by voters at the state level in most cases. But listen, Amendment three goes far beyond what I just said. Amendment three goes far beyond abortion.

CHAKRABARTI: Hawley had an even harder position on abortion before. May 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, here’s Hawley on Tucker Carlson’s show.

JOSH HAWLEY: Abortion is religion for the far left.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

HAWLEY: And they are willing to do anything to defend that religion and force it on everybody else. And that’s why they’re willing to burn down the court as an institution.

CHAKRABARTI: Hawley then sponsored a bill that same year that would have banned abortion nationally at 15 weeks.

The Supreme Court issued its decision overturning Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. That automatically implemented Missouri’s trigger law – so on the same day, Missouri banned all abortions. The only exception was for medical emergencies to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. It was one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans.

Women’s and reproductive rights advocacy groups organized demonstrations across the state, including in St. Louis.

My body, my choice. My body, my choice. (CHANTS)

CHAKRABARTI: The coalition Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, which includes Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Abortion Action Missouri, soon launched a ballot initiative aimed at putting the question abortion access before voters directly.

Over the next year and a half the group faced several legal cases challenging whether the measure could stay on the ballot. It was only this past September, that the Missouri state supreme court ruled that it could. Once again, Emily Wales.

WALES:  It took five lawsuits to finally get on the ballot. The one benefit of that process was that Missourians were so fed up and frustrated that by the time it was finalized, we didn't have to go out looking for volunteers. We had people calling us to say, how can I volunteer? Who do I need to call? How do I knock on doors?

And then, last week, Missourians issued a stark rebuke to the very legislators they put into office – by passing Amendment 3 and making abortion a constitutionally protected right in the state.

And that wasn’t the only thing they did. Voters also passed a $15 per hour minimum wage. They voted against new funding sources for law enforcement.

All of which, again, doesn’t seem to align with the values of the politicians they also put into office.

So today we're going to look at that seeming tension, and whether it may not be the contradiction it superficially seems to be.

So let's start by sticking with this the victory of Amendment 3. Mallory Schwarz is executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, and she joins us. Mallory, welcome to On Point.

MALLORY SCHWARZ: Thank you so much for having me, Meghna.

CHAKRABARTI: Can you first please remind us a little bit more of the history of Missouri's trigger law that went into effect in 2022?

What was it exactly and what brought about its existence?

SCHWARZ: Missouri's trigger law passed as part of an omnibus abortion law bill back in 2019, it included various different attacks on access to abortion and reproductive health. And when it first passed, a coalition of organizations in the state worked to use the people's referendum process, similar to the ballot process, to overturn it before it could be enacted. And at the time, that process was thwarted by our Secretary of State. And though the coalition took him to court and ultimately won, the people didn't get that opportunity back to vote and overturn the ban. And so then when we came to the Dobbs decision and Missouri became the first state to enact a total ban on abortion, we had been working behind the scenes.

Coalition partners across the state, for a number of years, to look at something, to look at a constitutional amendment that would enshrine this protection in our constitution and take this out of politicians' hands.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Then in terms of deciding what kind of measure to put before voters regarding abortion, especially the language really matters.

And specifically, Amendment 3 talks about protecting abortion rights until fetal viability. Can you talk to me about how that line was drawn?

SCHWARZ: Absolutely. So I think there's two different kind of issues with a ballot measure. It necessarily requires that people are bought in. It requires them to have some understanding of the issue.

And in a state like Missouri, where there's been a aggressive stigmatization of abortion over decades, through a litany of policies that restrict access and target clinics and target providers, it was important that there was language that voters were familiar with. And I think it's critical that this is not just a replica of the Roe framework because what Amendment 3's policy does is ensure that doctors are the decision makers.

It ensures that the burden is on the government and not the individual to prove to prove that there should be any interference at all, but what the fetal viability definition does is require that, is allow doctors, excuse me, doctors to treat the patient in front of them, and make that determination based on an individual pregnant person, because we know every pregnancy is unique.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so when supporters of Amendment 3 were canvassing the state, what did they hear from voters? Because as we pointed out last week at the same time, those same voters voted for Republican candidates for office overwhelmingly. And this is the tension that we're trying to understand, because many of those Republican candidates are very much on the record as being opposed to abortion rights of any kind.

So what were voters telling canvassers?

SCHWARZ: Yeah, it's interesting. I think if you go back to the Spring when we were canvassing to collect signatures in order to get this measure on the ballot, we would go to places in Mexico, Missouri or Centralia and our canvassers would knock on doors and people would be so grateful that they were there. And they would say, Oh my gosh, I didn't think I was going to get an opportunity to sign the petition.

Thank you so much for coming to my house. So there is enthusiasm around this issue in all corners of the state and then more recently, the past three weekends or more I was on the doors in St. Charles. St. Charles went 57% for Trump, but it went 53% for Amendment 3 and I would go up, We didn't leave any door on the table.

So there was one house I approached with a large Trump flag, and I talked to a 20-year-old first time voter who stopped me mid-sentence and said, Hey, I'm with you. We're with you. And you didn't, you don't expect that necessarily at that door, but I think the numbers really show that this issue is not partisan. People want to be able to control their own bodies and their own lives and make decisions for themselves and their families. And that's what we heard time and again, overwhelmingly.

CHAKRABARTI: Did people talk to you about how voting for abortion at the state level made more sense to them than federal level action might?

Because of course, it's the same. President Trump, who put several justices on the Supreme Court that end up ended up leading to the overturning of Roe.

SCHWARZ: Yeah, that's a good question. I can't say that I specifically spoke to any voters about that on the doors, but I do think that think there is maybe a level of trust folks have with Trump, when he has said that he will leave this to be a state's issue, I don't think I trust that. And I don't know what is in store for us in the coming year, but I think that people heard that this should be a state's issue. And making it a state's issue, and getting the opportunity to vote on this amendment gave people a measure of control over their own lives.

CHAKRABARTI: Huh. Now, I understand that a lot of money had to be raised as well. How much did you raise? Oh, all phases included close to $32 million. And do you think that is what was needed in order to get the Amendment 3 over the line in terms of reaching all Missouri voters?

Because that's a lot of money.

SCHWARZ: It is a lot of money. I think we came out in the end, and I haven't done explicit financial analysis on the funds. But I think for me, what was most important was the investment that we made in field and in talking to voters and having those conversations on the doors.

We did more than a quarter million doors in the past months to talk to voters in every corner of the state. And I think that really made a difference.

CHAKRABARTI: So last question, Mallory. We've just got about 30 seconds left here. Do you think it's a contradiction when people vote one way for folks to put in office, but vote another way for policies that they actually believe in, or is it not actually a contradiction? That's what we're trying to suss out this hour.

SCHWARZ: Yeah, I don't have a clean answer for this, but I think that ballot initiatives present solutions to people's lives, and it gives them an opportunity to take control and be a part of that solution.

And that can make you feel powerful and capable. And I think that politicians often seems like you're just picking the person that you like the most and you're hearing two guys bash each other. And it doesn't come with that feeling of empowerment that making your own decision about your life can give you.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Today we're taking a close look at the story Missouri has to tell about why voters in that state voted across the board for one party, and then simultaneously voted for a whole slew of ballot measures that party very much opposes. So let's stick with abortion for one more moment here.

Again, as we talked about in the previous segment, Missouri voters passed Amendment 3, which basically puts abortion rights as a constitutionally protected right in the state, at least up to fetal viability.

Now, the state's now governor-elect, Mike Kehoe, a Republican, this past September, he said that he believes elected officials' number one priority is, quote, protecting innocent life, the life of those who can't speak for themselves, end quote.

And he made this promise to Missouri voters.

MIKE KEHOE: Amendment 3 I think could be one of the most harmful constitutional amendments I've ever seen on the ballot. I would, I will do all I can to see that Amendment 3 is defeated.

CHAKRABARTI: Now once again, Amendment 3 did pass, excuse me, and Mike Kehoe was elected as governor.

So let's turn now to Jason Rosenbaum. He is the politics correspondent for St. Louis Public Radio. He's been reporting on all things political and ballot initiative in the state. He's with us from St. Louis. Jason, it's wonderful to have you. Welcome.

JASON ROSENBAUM: Thank you so much for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so first talk about, let's just pick up with what Governor Kehoe said there.

Is there anything that he or the state's incoming legislature could do to prevent Amendment 3 from being enacted? Not right away. And I have seen a lot of skepticism from people who feel that since Missouri has a Republican state government, that Amendment 3's implementation is just not going to happen.

But I think that ignores some realities. First of all, as a constitutional amendment, the legislature cannot just come into session and overturn what the people voted on, they would have to put something else on the ballot. Most likely in 2026. Number two, 2026 will be a midterm election when Donald Trump will be president.

Not exactly a hospitable environment for anti abortion rights activists. And number three, I don't know if Republicans are even going to be able to agree what to put on the ballot. There's a number of lawmakers that probably are not going to accept a redo election that has exceptions for rape, incest, health of the mother, a 12-week window.

They're going to want to go back to where they were before. Where there was zero weeks, no rape or incest exceptions, and a medical emergency exception that doctors felt was very limited. And if they can't figure out how to get around that, then I'm not sure there will be the critical mass to put something on the ballot right away.

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, that is interesting. Okay, anti-abortion activists want something so extreme that seems like it may not have a future in Missouri, at least as of right now. Very interesting. Okay, so a little bit earlier, Jason, we played that tape from Senator Hawley in his October debate with Lucas Kunce, and the question of abortion did come up there.

Did Amendment 3, was it a factor in other statewide races, governor, House races, et cetera?

ROSENBAUM: No. And in fact, I would say the idea that Amendment three would be a coattail for Democratic candidates failed spectacularly. Hawley won by 14 percentage points, which is more than double what he won in 2018 against Claire McCaskill.

All the statewide office holders won by huge margins, Republican statewide candidates, even for the state legislative level, where some Democrats were actually very optimistic that Amendment 3 would make a difference. Even though amendment three passed with 67% of the vote in St. Louis County, where I live, none of the Republicans who are in competitive districts there lost.

They all won. This was an example of a assumption that Democrats had nationally, that abortion would be a winner for them for down ballot and the presidency being completely wrong. And I think that Missouri can be a great example of that.

CHAKRABARTI: So tell me more. Why do you think that is? I think that there has been a misconception among people that the only people who are for abortion rights are Democrats.

I think that there is a minority of voters who identify as Republicans. But who do not like abortion restrictions. And if I can get personal for a minute, I come from suburban Chicago. My congressman for many years was Mark Kirk, who eventually became a U.S. Senator. For 100% of his tenure in Congress, he was for abortion rights, because people in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago had Republican tendencies on many issues, but they tended to support candidates who were for abortion rights.

And I would say that type of voter exists in Missouri. They're just not geographically concentrated in one part of the state. If you look at the results of Amendment 3, you can see those types of voters not only in some of the suburban and urban areas, but also more rural parts.

The fact that some counties in Missouri voted yes on Amendment 3, rural counties by upwards of 40% or over shows that there's not a critical mass of pro-abortion rights voters in rural Missouri, but there are a lot of them. And when you combine that with the urban and suburban areas, that's enough to get over 50% and enshrine abortion in the Missouri Constitution.

CHAKRABARTI: I see. And actually, that's what we heard Mallory Schwarz say earlier. That they knocked on doors across the state, didn't just focus in the places that they thought they'd find the highest concentration of voters who would support Amendment 3. Okay, so Missouri Democrats couldn't leverage the presence of a board of Amendment 3 on the ballot to their advantage in terms of the offices they were running for.

But what about the other side of the equation. Did the Republican candidates in the state, did they try to avoid talking about Amendment 3 unless asked directly, or were they just as forthright about their opposition to the Amendment, as we heard Governor Kehoe say a little bit earlier?

ROSENBAUM: I think it depended on the particular race. I think for statewide contenders like Hawley and Kehoe, they did not avoid Amendment 3 at all. They talked often about how opposed they were to it. They even tried to make an argument that was, I would say really disputed by a lot of legal experts, that it would legalize gender affirming care for minors.

That was more of a political argument rather than a legal one, because there's nothing in the amendment that says anything about gender affirming care. But I would say for the state legislative post, I would imagine that they were a little bit more hesitant to talk about this issue. Just because they knew that they had to walk a very tight, a very difficult tightrope where Amendment 3 was likely going to be supported in their districts, but they needed to make other arguments not to vote for the Democrats.

And for the most part, that works. Because as I said, the vulnerable Democrats won, or I'm sorry, the vulnerable Republicans won. In all the suburban areas that were being targeted.

CHAKRABARTI: See, the reason why I wanted to ask you about that is because, yes, we can see that it didn't help the Democrats, but it also didn't cost Missouri Republicans who were running for office.

And it's that tension, as I keep calling, I'm not even sure if it's a tension that we're trying to understand today. I'm just wondering what you thought of what Mallory said, that when it comes to state ballot measures. Do Missouri voters see those as actually like concrete solutions that are separate and apart from politics?

And so therefore it gives them an opportunity to vote one way, which might be a little bit diametrically or opposed to the very policies that their candidates, that they're voting for, believe in.

ROSENBAUM: I would agree and disagree with you at the same time. I agree with you that there was no political cost to Republicans banning most abortions in 2022, but there was a policy cost.

I think that one of the noticeable things that I have seen since amendment 3 passed is the anti-abortion folks are making all sorts of excuses, why they lost. The pro side was better organized, the pro side had more money, they'd only, it only requires 50% plus one, instead of 60% like in Florida.

Not once have I heard anybody on the anti-abortion right side say, Maybe we lost because we instituted one of the strictest abortion bans in the country that even Republicans thought went too far. Like you heard that clip earlier from Josh Hawley, even he doesn't support an abortion ban that doesn't have rape or incest exceptions.

Donald Trump doesn't support that. Donald Trump was quoted as saying that six weeks in Florida was too short. So by extension, you would say that zero weeks in Missouri is probably not even something that Donald Trump would agree with. So I would actually say that the reason this past is a direct consequence of legislative action, and the ballot initiative process, while it may not be a coattails benefit to democrats, it can be a check on some of the excesses of the Republican dominated legislature.

And I think that because this is a constitutional amendment, and because of the political dynamics I talked with, talked about earlier, getting rid of this is going to be very difficult. And there really is going to be an expansion of abortion access that is going to be significant and tangible and real.

For a number of years here.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, that is very interesting. Jason, I want to come back to something that you said about the excesses of a single party dominated legislature. But before we do that, we spent a lot of time on Amendment 3, but there were several other really interesting ballot measures that Missouri voters had their say on.

Let's go through some of them. First of all, there was Amendment 6, which would have allowed court fees to be used to pay police salaries and retirement benefits, and voters rejected that one. Tell me about that.

ROSENBAUM: I think they rejected that one because that was something that was put on the ballot by the legislature.

And unlike Amendment 3, there wasn't a robust ... campaign. And I think that pretty much every editorial page in the state, said to vote against that. What I have noticed is that when there is a lower profile ballot initiative on up for grabs, and people don't really know about it.

They typically either look at their local newspaper, or maybe look to see what their legislators say. And I just don't think that there was like really strong support either from like the editorial page side, or even from the Republican side. This was a niche issue. And because there wasn't a really strong pro campaign. And because, as you've seen, there is a tendency for even Republican voters to be skeptical of things that seem to be Republican leaning on a statewide ballot.

I think that is the reason why this did not even come close to passing.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. And then there was also proposition A, which was a ballot measure to increase the Missouri State minimum wage to 15 an hour, and to ensure that workers are eligible for paid sick leave. That one passed. Tell me about that.

ROSENBAUM: I think it's actually the opposite reasoning that I mentioned before. There was a very well-funded and well-organized pro campaign for this. And while there were business groups that opposed it, they didn't spend a lot of money to try and defeat it. This is a pattern that we've seen with minimum wage increases in Missouri.

Since I started covering Missouri politics, there are people, groups that complain about minimum wage increased ballot initiatives, but they never actually do much of anything to try and defeat them. I think the other thing too, is like in this world of inflation, $15 an hour, while it may have seemed high, like 10, 15 years ago, I think it actually seems pretty reasonable to people.

So that is probably the reason that passed, but I do know that business groups are not happy with the sick time requirement part of this. And they may try and sue over it, or because this is a statutory change, they may actually try to get the legislature to make some changes to that. But there will be a lot of opposition to that, because this wasn't even close.

I think it passed 58 to 42. So there'll be a little bit more resistance to try and do anything legislatively with this.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So let's listen to what governor elect Mike Kehoe had to say about Proposition A. This is again from a September debate where he said he wouldn't support raising the minimum wage, or wouldn't support paid sick leave.

And in the debate, he said that stance of his is based on his 35 years as a businessman, who he says he's helped create hundreds of jobs and therefore he does not think that higher minimum wage or paid sick leave is the right choice for workers.

MIKE KEHOE: I believe that government should not be setting wages for people.

I think the economy and business should. And when we change minimum wage standards, we actually affect those that we're trying to help the most. Minimum wages will cause prices to rise on the most basic of products. It also leaves a void for the youngest of people who want to start at an entry level job.

You take those jobs away from them, so you create this false economy where kids don't have a job, and the products that the people who are buying, who can't afford it the most, the wages are going up on. We need to make sure that we let businesses set the wage. That's the appropriate place for that to happen. And that's why I think works best, letting government involved in this does not work.

The economy can set the prices.

CHAKRABARTI: So Jason what I'm wondering, is that there's a worldview that Governor-elect Kehoe put forth in that statement there about government not having any role in setting wages, right? And he sounds like the classic free market republicanism that we've known for 40 plus years now.

But overwhelmingly, Missouri voters just are rejecting that worldview by saying, no, we should set a state minimum wage that's at $15 an hour, and they don't see an inflationary problem with it. They don't see it as denying teenagers summer jobs. They see it, I'm presuming, as a necessary aspect of a life at a living wage.

What kind of Republicanism or conservatism would you say, or how would you describe what conservatism in Missouri right now?

ROSENBAUM:  I think it depends on whether you're talking about the politician class or the voter class. If you're talking about the political class, I would say the conservatism in Missouri is probably like way to the right of the national media.

I think we saw that with our abortion ban, which was out of step, again, even with other Republican states, and with the future Republican president. And I think you also see this legislatively on economic levels, where you have a lot of Republicans who often talk about minimum wage increases disparagingly like this.

I think for Missouri voters, I just think that it's not as ideologically homogenous as people assume. Yes, I think Missourians have conservative political views on things, especially when it comes to things like guns. I think there is a lot of real anti-abortion sentiment in Missouri among voters, and I think that there may even be some like low tax, low regulation type thing.

There, going on as well. I just don't know if it goes to the most extreme or the most rightward measure. And we saw that with abortion. We've saw that with minimum wage. We saw that with recreational marijuana two years ago. You can buy three ounces of marijuana in Missouri. Show it to a police officer and the police officer can do nothing, because it's completely legal here.

I just think that a lot of Missourians just don't have the down the line ideological views that a lot of political people have. But they're putting those political people back in office and repeatedly.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: Jason, hang on here for a second because we want to hear also from, again, people on the ground who were supporting some of these successful ballot measures in Missouri. And Richard von Glahn is one of them. He was the candidate for Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages. That's the coalition behind that 15 minimum wage and paid sick leave measure, which passed. And Von Glahn told us that he recognized they had a winner pretty early in the process.

RICHARD VON GLAHN: On that first day, we gathered over 10,000 signatures all across the state.

It was actually the largest day of single signature collection pulled off by volunteers ever in the history of the state. And we've worked on ballot initiatives a number of times. And so that really told us at that point, this is an issue that is resonating with people and resonating strongly.

CHAKRABARTI: But of course, in politics, victory is never guaranteed. The initiative faced opposition primarily from larger business associations like the Missouri Restaurant Association and the State Chamber of Commerce, but Von Glahn thinks those organizations don't reflect individual business owners in Missouri who he felt were largely in support of the proposition's efforts. And also the opposition didn't reflect what canvassers heard from voters directly, regardless of who they might vote for in the presidential or Senate races.

VON GLAHN: The interesting thing about ballot initiatives is they really get to be these sort of conversations between neighbors about our experience of our daily lives. I know myself, I gathered signatures from people in my community that I know voted for a conservative candidate, but when I asked them, hey, do you think a parent should have to be punished, not be paid, if they have to pick up a sick child from work? I can have that conversation with people that go to my children's elementary school. And the answer is universally, No, that shouldn't happen.

CHAKRABARTI: By the way, Missouri was one of three states where paid leave was on the ballot in this election, and all three states voted overwhelmingly to support those measures.

As you heard earlier, Missouri's initiative captured 58% of the vote. In Alaska, 57% of Alaskans voted for a similar measure. In Nebraska, they passed their ballot initiative overwhelmingly with 74% of voters in favor. With that level of support, it's hard to imagine the initiatives as a partisan measure.

At least that's von Glahn's take.

VON GLAHN: So much about candidates and partisan campaigns, you're either a Coke or a Pepsi guy. And you don't delineate between Coke and Pepsi, and you don't even talk to people who drink the other drink. And ballot initiatives just aren't that way. It allows us to talk to people about the experiences that we're having and living and why those experiences matter.

CHAKRABARTI: I'd also add that ballot measures allow voters to decide on things that politicians are supposed to be doing, which is actual solutions. Now, von Glahn says that ballot initiatives provide for a kind of education, as well, for voters, that is not part of traditional partisan political campaigns.

VON GLAHN: I think a lot of people actually don't know what the minimum wage is.

And so when I would ask people, even if I said, the minimum wage is $12.30 an hour, I'd say, how much do you think that equates to over a week? People would say I assume $700, $800, because they think a minimum wage should pay for not an extravagant, but you should be able to afford an apartment and food and different things.

And I say, actually, it's less than $500 a week. And then people would connect that and say, Oh that's not right. And I'd say, correct.

CHAKRABARTI: That's Richard von Glahn, campaign manager for Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages. Jason Rosenbaum, hang on here for a second, because now's the chance for us to bring in Michael Strawbridge.

He's assistant professor of political science at Washington University. His research focuses on American politics, quantitative methodology in racial and ethnic politics. And he's also with us from St. Louis. Professor Strawbridge, welcome to you.

MICHAEL STRAWBRIDGE: Hi, thanks for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So first of all, I have to say, Jason gave us some pretty interesting reasons to perhaps be skeptical that there's any kind of conflict here between who voters put into office, versus the policies they actually want, because, as Jason said, in Missouri, that trigger law on abortion was extreme.

It was the most extreme one in the country. And perhaps there was voter reaction to the extremity of that rather than their view on whether or not there should be abortion access. And then Jason also said something interesting about inflation right now, and how that is really hitting people hard.

And perhaps that was a factor when we think about the passage of this new $15 minimum wage. So does that make this kind of an exceptional election cycle, or do you think that there's actually something more to be discussed regarding what we've been calling this tension that voters might have?

STRAWBRIDGE: I think in many ways, I probably agree with a lot of the descriptions given so far, because for me, it's mainly a story around the fact that voters aren't dumb. I think we assume that voters have this ability to put aside their personal experiences and vote down ballot. But the split-second voting between the candidates and the issues really speaks to the fact that for many of these individuals, they're thinking about what's going on in their everyday life there, regardless of their political affiliation and their loyalty there.

So you mentioned inflation, you can also think about with Amendment 3, just the importance and the salience of reproductive rights for many women in this country. I also want to point out the fact that the reason why this tension, really, it's an interesting story, but it's not necessarily one of we see a world where Democrats can have overwhelming success in Missouri.

It's the simple fact that the margins weren't that large. You mentioned before, the fact that Republican candidates did a great job of winning by 10 double digit points in several other districts. When you look at some of the measures, if I remember correctly, I believe Amendment 3 passed with 3 points.

So, you know, 51% really just suggests that it didn't take that many Republicans to come across the aisle and support Amendment 3, in the way we would think that we have this huge jump towards Amendment 3. ... So if it's not taking many Republicans to switch their vote, that really suggests that the tension isn't there, but for some, probably not.

But for some personal interest, religion overrides partisan affiliation.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, that's a really good point. So let's zoom out for here for a second. We saw abortion rights questions pass in almost every state where it was on the ballot with the exception of Florida I believe. And as we mentioned earlier, we saw paid leave also pass overwhelmingly in all three states where it was on the ballot.

Do you see what's happening in Missouri as an assertion that you made nationally?

STRAWBRIDGE: Yes, I do, because if we can go even broader than just the amendments, we can think around the tension between voters in many swing states. We saw multiple statewide candidates, Wisconsin and Michigan, win the races where Kamala lost.

We think around just how voters are making interesting choices in the candidates, and they should support their ... Missouri in many ways is a reflection of that, of many citizens, seemingly supporting candidates, but issues, they still think about what's best for them there.

And I think that's important to keep in mind when we're talking about voters. We sometimes in general, not just Missouri. We try to characterize them as having no time or energy to think about these issues there, but it doesn't take time to think around the cost of groceries. If you're buying groceries every day, it doesn't take time to think about the importance of reproductive care.

If it's something you're dealing with every day. So these issues that have tangible consequence for folks in their everyday lives, it allows them to process them in a different way than large scale meta issues that may be seen beyond the scope of their everyday considerations.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So Jason Rosenbaum, let me turn to you, back to you here, because I'm thinking I'm hearing what Professor Strawbridge is saying and remembering that in our conversation, Jason, you used the word extreme several times in terms of like the Missouri State Legislature and some of the policies that they've advanced.

It seems to me that given these ballot measures, there's a pretty strong constituency in Missouri for non-reactionary republicanism, right? Like, where's the candidate who might stand up and say, Hey. I am for some abortion restrictions, but definitely don't think that a 12-year-old who has been raped by a cousin should be forced to have a baby.

Are those, do those candidates exist in Missouri?

ROSENBAUM: Interestingly, like Mike Kehoe is one of those candidates. He said multiple times that he supports exceptions for rape and incest. But, and he actually was attacked by his Republican primary opponents for saying that. In fact, I'll put another example on, I asked future governor Kehoe last year about a possibility of enacting protections for LGBTQ people against discrimination.

Because he had voted for that when he was a state senator. And while he didn't give like his assurances that he would support that as governor, he did basically say that Republicans have to start reaching out to LGBTQ people more and have to acknowledge that they exist. And he was attacked mercilessly for making one of the more banal comments about on that topic.

So in some respects, Kehoe, even though he is against Amendment 3. You played the clip of him talking about the minimum wage. He may actually be that type of Republican you were talking about in many respects. The other thing that I haven't mentioned is that the top anti-abortion rights group, Missouri Right to Life, did not endorse Kehoe in the primary.

And I don't think they did very much to support him in a general election that he won by 21 points. So he doesn't really have much incentive to do anything for the anti-abortion rights groups, even though I know personally he opposes abortion rights, out of real conviction. So it may seem counterintuitive, because his public statements don't really match what I just said, but I think Kehoe may actually be that type of Republican that you were talking about.

CHAKRABARTI: What about at the legislature level? Or is being primaried really still the overwhelming concern?

ROSENBAUM: I think it really depends on the person, because primaries often are the election in Missouri legislative races. Oftentimes legislators have to really go for that base voter. But one of the interesting things that we haven't talked about yet is even though there are a lot of Republican senators that want to put something else on the ballot, the incoming Speaker of the House, Jon Patterson, is from a swing district in suburban Kansas City.

And he has said publicly that the legislature should respect the will of the voters when it comes to Amendment 3 and this gets a little Inside Baseball, so forgive me for a second, but it is important. The Speaker of the House has monumental power over moving legislation. And if he never wanted to assign a bill or a constitutional amendment or a redo ballot initiative to committee, he could.

And I don't see him budging from that statement. And I think that is another obstacle to getting something on the ballot right away.

Now, am I foreclosing that this will never be voted on again?

No, I think there could be some like four or five, six, seven years down the line where Missourians vote on a slate of abortion restrictions.

What I'm trying to convey to people, especially people who are down about the national elections and are upset about Republicans winning in Missouri. This idea that Amendment 3 is just going to be swept away right away is not supported by the facts. It is going to be very difficult for the Republicans that oppose Amendment 3 to just whisk it away, because it's a constitutional amendment.

And I don't even think from a federal level there's enough critical mass to do an abortion ban through Congress. So I think it's there to stay for a while.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Professor Strawbridge, let me bring the totality of your scholarship into this here for a minute, because of course I'm thinking about Donald Trump, right?

And the new Latino male voters he managed to bring in, or the slight shift that we saw in black men voting, slight shift, for Trump. In a sense, Trump, in terms of some of these issues, may be the kind of non-extreme Republican that I was talking about, even with who he's put on the Supreme Court.

So I wonder what you think about that, that there's a critical mass of voters who don't, for whatever reason, don't see a home in the Democratic Party, don't necessarily agree with the extreme wing of the Republican Party, but may have found some resonance with Trump?

STRAWBRIDGE: That's an interesting question, because we're trying to really understand these shifts among minority voters in particular.

And something that I've been doing is not thinking about comparing the percentages, but the raw number of voters showing up for the people on the ballot there. So it's almost like spinning this question on its head of really what I'm finding is the shift in Black male support, for instance, for Donald Trump, is not so much a function of Black men leaving the Democratic Party for the Republican Party, but it's more so a shift of more Black men staying home altogether.

So the conflict becomes one of Democrat versus home and not Democrat versus Republican. And that really then speaks to then this idea of, it's not so much Trump making better or newer appeals that are seemingly moderate there, but a failure by the Democratic party to mobilize these voters in the same way they had in previous elections, as we saw in general, Kamala Harris got less votes than Joe Biden did.

She got more than Obama, I believe she's somewhere around, I think 71 million something in there versus Donald Trump got the same number around 74 million total votes there.  So this whole notion of trying to understand shifts and voter patterns by looking just at proportions is going to really obscure the reality of who's showing up to the polls.

Because the same people on one side and just less on the other. But then obviously that changes how division works.