Abortion rights proponents notched a major victory in Ohio this week, where voters said ‘No’ to Issue 1—an attempt by Republicans to handicap November’s pro-abortion rights ballot initiative—with a whopping 57 percent of the vote. 

Here are three early takeaways, and what they mean for women candidates and voters heading into Election Day 2023 and the 2024 cycle:

1. Ohio’s abortion amendment is now favored to pass in November, which will further protect abortion access for the nearly 30 million women in the Upper Midwest, Appalachia and the Upland South.
   
2. This win provides another messaging and voter outreach blueprint for right-leaning and swing states where public support for abortion rights hovers in the 40s and low-50s, including states featuring the women on our Top 2023 Races slate—Kentucky, Mississippi and Virginia—and 2024 swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
   
3. Female voters drove this defeat. According to Tom Bonier, who runs the election data firm TargetSmart, women accounted for 56 percent of all ballots cast, including 60 percent of early voters who did not vote in 2022. Seventy percent of early voters broke against Issue 1.

Help carry this momentum through November, when Ohio’s pro-abortion rights referendum will be on the ballot: Give to Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and the six candidates on our 2023 Top Races slate.