Red state Ky’s rejection of Amendment 2 shows dangers of political stereotyping

Voters in the Commonwealth of Kentucky soundly defeated an anti-abortion constitutional amendment Tuesday.

Let that sink in.

Kentucky! The state that reelected Mitch McConnell so many times he rose to lead the GOP’s Senate caucus, and helped fill the courts with right-wing judges. Perhaps no one did more to bring down the pro-choice Roe v. Wade legal regime than Kentucky’s senior senator.

Kentucky. A state that launched the career of Rand Paul – one of the most conservative U.S. senators – and just reelected him a second time. Kentuckians sent Paul’s pro-choice opponent packing, with less than 40% of the vote, on the same ballot they used to rebuff anti-abortion forces.

Kentucky? A state with one lonely Democrat in its incoming congressional delegation? A state with Republican supermajorities overflowing their General Assembly?

Yes, Kentucky, the latest crimson-red state where voters delivered a victory for abortion rights. It boggles the mind.

Yet it shouldn’t. Most politically connected Kentuckians knew the state’s anti-abortion amendment was going down. Maybe we couldn’t state it definitively – public-opinion polls are few and far between in the Commonwealth – but it was a safer bet than the favored horse at the Kentucky Derby.

Why did Kentucky go pro-choice? It wasn’t a problem with the amendment voters rejected. The language said little. Paraphrasing: “The Kentucky Constitution grants no right to abortion, or to having one funded.” A year ago, that amendment might have passed effortlessly. Adopting it did nothing to change current law.

Current law, though. That was part of the problem. Kentucky had passed an anti-abortion “trigger law” to take effect if the Supreme Court ever scuttled Roe v. Wade. Purely theoretical. A symbolic statement. Because what was the chance the justices would jettison Roe? And yet, with this Summer’s Dobbs decision, they did.

Suddenly, Kentucky found itself saddled with some of the nation’s strictest anti-abortion regulations. No exception for rape. No exception for incest. And unless the woman faced death, it didn’t matter how far along she might be in her pregnancy.

Even so, outsiders expected Kentucky voters to defend such pro-life policies. It’s a “Red” state, after all. A GOP stronghold. For Kentucky to consider rolling back even the most-stringent abortion restrictions still boggles the mind, right?

Again, it shouldn’t. And if it does, this time it’s not a Kentucky problem. It is, as my students say, “a you problem.”

Americans have become too comfortable stereotyping diverse groups of people. Red states? Blue states? They’re portrayed as worlds apart, but they’re not. So-called Blue states contain pockets of conservative voters who can drive elections rightward temporarily (as in Michigan) or durably (as in Wisconsin).

Meanwhile, so-called Red states harbor communities about as urbane as those located on the coasts. Kentucky contains two Democratic strongholds, Louisville on the Ohio River and Lexington, one of the country’s 25 most-educated cities. They form two points of a burgeoning Golden Triangle stretching across the Bluegrass to Cincinnati. That sort of affluent and progressive oasis exists in most Red states.

Kentucky’s Golden Triangle sank Amendment 2, as it was called. More than 70% of voters in both Louisville and Lexington voted to keep that superficially innocuous language out of the constitution. Opposition was weaker near Cincinnati, but those voters also deep-sixed a state supreme court bid by the trigger law’s author.

Kentucky’s Democrats didn’t defeat the amendment alone. They required support from some of the same voters who filled the legislature with Republicans. Even the most rural counties cast at least a quarter of their votes in the pro-choice direction.

Once again, if that coalition surprises anyone, it’s only because we hold stereotypes about party supporters, treating them as though they’re monolithic. Pro-choice Republicans exist in large numbers across the country, and even among abortion opponents, not all of them embraced Kentucky’s draconian status quo. Amendment 2’s well-funded detractors advertised how the abortion restrictions could prevent doctors from delivering much-needed medical care.

Kentucky’s popular Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, expressed confidence that voters supported abortion exceptions for incest and for rape victims. Evidence supports his claim. A recent survey analyzed by former Centre College political scientist Ben Knoll found that Kentuckians were about 10 percentage points more anti-abortion than the national average, a gap that appeared among both Democrats and Republicans. Significant? Yes. Sufficient justification for all the Red state vs. Blue state rhetoric? Not really.

Rejecting Amendment 2 did nothing to change Kentucky law, and GOP leadership may be unwilling to reconsider. Abortion rights likely rely on constitutional interpretation, as test cases work their way through the Kentucky judiciary. But it’s a hope left alive by Amendment 2’s repudiation.

Given the chance to weigh in on stringent abortion restrictions, Kentucky voters withheld their support. And despite all of today’s polarizing rhetoric and stereotyping, that result should have boggled no one’s mind at all.

Stephen Voss is a political scientist specializing in elections and voting behavior at the University of Kentucky.