"Fire Duey Stroebel" sign at Habush Sinykin Election night party. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

Tuesday’s election results for the Wisconsin State Legislature were mixed. Wisconsin Democrats won several key state Senate races, breaking the Republican 22-seat supermajority and laying the groundwork for Democrats to compete for a majority in 2026. In the Assembly, Republicans appear to have held their majority with many incumbents defeating their challengers. 

New legislative maps, which were adopted in February after the state Supreme Court ruled the old maps were an unconstitutional gerrymander, gave Democrats the opportunity to run in competitive districts in many cases for the first time in over a decade. 

Half of the state Senate was up for reelection this year, and Democrats ran in each Senate district.

Democrats won five districts they were targeting on Tuesday — ousting Republican incumbents, winning newly created open seats and keeping a Democratic incumbent in office. The results bring the Senate makeup to 18 Republicans and 15 Democrats. The previous makeup was 22 Republicans and 10 Democrats.

Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) celebrated in a statement Wednesday morning.

“Senate Democrats defeated Republicans’ manufactured supermajority, and we are on a pathway to the majority in 2026,” Hesselbein said “Our candidates knocked on thousands of doors, listened to voters, and clearly articulated their vision for Wisconsin. Senate Democrats will tirelessly defend our shared values and uplift working families.”

Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin of Whitefish Bay declared victory over Sen. Duey Stroebel of Saukville, ousting the lawmaker who has served in the Senate since 2016. The race was one of the most expensive state legislative races in the state with spending surpassing $10.2 million, according to a review by WisPolitics. 

The district sits north of Milwaukee and includes Whitefish Bay, Fox Point, Bayside, River Hills, Menomonee Falls, Germantown, Mequon, Cedarburg, Grafton and Port Washington.

This will be Habush Sinykin’s first time holding public office. She ran for office once before in a special election for an open seat in 2023, but lost to Sen. Dan Knodl. 

Hesselbein welcomed Habush Sinykin in a release, saying that she and her team ran an “incredible” campaign. 

“As the underdog, she did not shy away from the hard work necessary to win this race,” Hesselbain said. “Jodi’s deep ties to the community, thoughtful decision-making, and experience as an attorney will allow her to effectively legislate for the needs of this community.”

At an election night party in Theinsville, Habush Sinykin started the night greeting, thanking and talking to her supporters, though results of the race hadn’t been called by 2 a.m. when the party ended. Signs declaring “Fire Duey Stroebel” were placed throughout the party.

Democrat Sarah Keyeski, a mental health provider from Lodi, declared victory over incumbent Sen. Joan Ballweg just after midnight in the race for the 14th Senate District. Keyeski is a political newcomer, and this will be her first term in office. 

The district sits north of Madison and covers parts of Dane, Columbia, Sauk and Richland counties, including the cities of Deforest, Reedsburg, Baraboo, Lodi, Columbus, Portage, Richland Center and Wisconsin Dells. The district changed under new legislative maps, and Ballweg, who has served in the Senate since 2021, was drawn into another district but decided to move to remain in the 14th district.

Hesselbein said she is “confident that Sarah will be a strong voice for folks living in the 14th Senate District.”

Democrat Jamie Wall, a business consultant from Green Bay, declared victory over Republican Jim Rafter in the race for the open 30th Senate District. The newly created district sits in Brown County, representing Green Bay, Ashwaubenon, De Pere, Allouez, Bellevue. 

Democrat Kristin Alfheim, a member of the Appleton Common Council, defeated Republican Anthony Phillips, a cancer physician, in the race for the 18th Senate District in the Fox Valley, including Appleton, Menasha, Neenah and Oshkosh.

Democratic Sen. Brad Pfaff of Onalaska, won reelection over Republican challenger Stacey Klein, clinching his second term in office. Pfaff was first elected to the Senate in 2020, and previously served as the secretary-designee of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, after being appointed by Gov. Tony Evers, though Republicans later denied his nomination. 

Highly contested Assembly races

All of the Assembly’s 99 seats were up for election this year, and after the new maps were implemented, Democrats saw an opportunity to make gains, and potentially flip the body. The new majority is likely 54 Republicans to 45 Democrats.

While Republicans held onto enough seats to retain their majority this year, Democrats cut the previous 64-seat Republican majority by 10 seats and had all their incumbents reelected. 

“Fair maps have allowed voters to hold legislators accountable, and this will change how policy is written and what bills move through the legislature,” said Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) in a statement Wednesday. “I hope and expect that this shift will result in more collaboration and bipartisan work in the legislature, because that is what the people of Wisconsin have asked us to do.”

The Assembly Democrats will add 23 new members to their caucus.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the party was proud of those who won. He said the Republican Assembly caucus will have eight new members in the Legislature. 

“We are at 54 strong,” Vos said. “Many people, especially the minority leader, spent the last three months telling everybody, they were going to be in the majority. They were clearly wrong, and again now we get the chance to set the agenda for the rest of the state with our colleagues in the state Senate.”

Vos and Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) said the results were a sign of Republican strength, and that Democrats were only able to pick up seats because the maps, which were proposed by Evers and passed by the Republican-majority Legislature, were drawn to favor them. 

“The only way that Democrats picked up seats was by having a map that was clearly gerrymandered to give them a result,” Vos said. 

“We were able to fight against that because we have better candidates, a better message and we are right on the issues when it comes down to it,” August said. 

Vos, the longest speaker in state history, said he will run to lead Assembly Republicans again. He said the caucus’ priorities for the session will need to be discussed in the coming weeks, but one will likely focus on the state’s budget surplus. 

“We are not going to spend that. It’s going to either go back to the taxpayers as relief, or it’s going to stay in the budget as a surplus because I am not going to support a plan that says if Evers vetoes tax cuts, we’re going to spend it on growing the size of government,” Vos said. 

Many Republican incumbents defeated their Democratic challengers. Republican Rep. Jessie Rodriguez of Oak Creek defeated Democratic challenger David Marstellar in the race for the 21st Assembly District, which sits in Milwaukee County.

Republican Rep. Todd Novak of Dodgeville defeated Democratic challenger Elizabeth Grabe in the race for the 51st Assembly District, which represents part of Lafayette, Iowa and Grant counties. 

Republican Rep. Shannon Zimmerman of River Falls defeated Democrat Alison Page in the 30th Assembly District, which represents the cities of Hudson and River Falls as well as the towns of Troy and St. Joseph. Zimmerman has served in the Assembly since 2016. 

Republican Rep. Bob Donovan defeated Democrat LuAnn Bird in their rematch to represent  Assembly District 61, which covers Greendale and Hales Corner in Milwaukee County. 

Republican Rep. Patrick Snyder defeated Democratic challenger Yee Leng Xiong, executive director at the Hmong American Center and a member of the Marathon County Board, in the race for the 85th Assembly District. The district represents Wausau and other parts of Marathon County. Snyder has served in the Assembly since 2016.

Republican Rep. Clint Moses, who has served in the Assembly since 2020, defeated Democratic challenger Joe Plouff, in the race for Assembly District 92, which covers Menomonie and Chippewa Falls. 

Democratic candidate Joe Sheehan, former superintendent of the Sheboygan Area School District and executive director of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation, defeated Republican Rep. Amy Binsfield, a first-term representative from Sheboygan, in the race for Assembly District 26. 

Democrat Tara Johnson, a former La Crosse County Board member, defeated Rep. Loren Oldenburg (R-Viroqua), who was first elected to the Assembly in 2018, in the race for the 96th Assembly District. 

Democrat Ryan Spaude, a criminal prosecutor, defeated Republican Patrick Buckley, who serves as the Brown County Board chairman, in the race for the 89th Assembly District, which covers parts of Brown County including Ashwaubenon and Green Bay. 

Democratic Rep. Jodi Emerson of Eau Claire defeated Republican challenger Michele Magadance Skinner in the race for the 91st Assembly District. 

Democrat Christian Phelps defeated Republican James Rolbiecki in the race for the 93rd Assembly District, which represents part of Eau Claire. The seat represents a gain for Democrats in the area.

Democratic Rep. Deb Andraca, who flipped a district when she was first elected in 2020, said Tuesday night at the Election party in Thiensville that Democrats adding seats in the Assembly was a “different day” and Democrats in the Assembly would no longer be trying to just save the governor’s veto. She declared victory in her reelection bid on Tuesday night.

“The gerrymander is dead,” Andraca said. “We’re no longer saving the veto. We are going to go back in the Wisconsin State Assembly with more seats than we have had in over a decade. We are going to be looking at the ability to negotiate, bring our bills forward and it’s going to be a completely different day.” 

“We are going to be able to make much more of a difference in the Wisconsin State Assembly, and that’s because of all of the hard work that people in this room have done election after election and year after year.” 

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the national organization that works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, celebrated the Wisconsin results in a statement. 

“Thanks to fair maps and a smart strategy, the GOP’s stranglehold on Wisconsin’s Legislature is coming to an end,” DLCC President Heather Williams said. “Our 2024 wins mark just the beginning. Seat by seat, the DLCC is committed to continuing to build and defend Democratic power in the Wisconsin Legislature. Republicans have been put on notice: the DLCC is poised to make Wisconsin a future Democratic trifecta.”

This report has been updated.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Former gas station owner Tony Wied, who is running for Congress, with former President Donald Trump. (Screenshot via Tony Wied for Congress Facebook)

Republican businessman Tony Wied has defeated Democrat OB-GYN Kristin Lyerly in the race for Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District. 

The seat was open this year after U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, who was first elected in 2016, resigned from Congress in April. Wied also won the special election, which happened concurrently with the general election to fill out the rest of the two-year term left open by Gallagher’s departure.

Wied had 60% of the vote to 39% for Lyerly, with 63% of the ballots counted, according to the Associated Press, which called the race at 10:54 p.m.

Less than an hour before AP called the race, Wied claimed victory in a triumphant speech at the Legacy Hotel in Green Bay, Wisconsin, not far from Lambeau Field.

“Tonight, the voters of District 8 sent a very clear message,” he told a crowd of supporters. “They’re ready to bring common sense back to Washington.”

He thanked his voters “for trusting me with this office” and promised to work for each one of them.

“And I spent my life raising my family and running our businesses right here in the district,” Wied said. “My wife and I are private people. But I could no longer stand by and watch the continuing dysfunction.”

Wied’s race against Lyerly tested the power of reproductive rights against an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, and Tuesday night Wied thanked the Republican presidential candidate, calling Trump’s support for Wied’s campaign “second to none.”

Before the race was called, Lyerly said at a Brown County election watch party that regardless of the election outcome, the campaign had built a foundation with volunteers “who have pitched in to help us that we can build on for years to come.”

Lyerly said she believed her campaign was “changing the converasation” around reproductive rights, and shared a story about a restaurant server who had confided in her and “was grateful for the work that I was doing.”

This will be Wied’s first time holding public office. The Republican-leaning northeast district covers the city of Green Bay and the rest of surrounding Brown County as well as Marinette, Oconto, Menonominee, Shawano, Waupaca, Outagamie, Calumet counties and part of Winnebago County. 

Wied, who previously owned Dino Stop, a Green Bay-based gas and convenience store chain, won a three-way primary with Trump’s endorsement and leaned heavily on the Trump during his campaign.  

While Lyerly sought to center reproductive health issues, Wied focused on economic issues, including taxes and immigration. He highlighted his support for lowering taxes and said he wants to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts which Democrats have complained unfairly benefited the rich. He has also said that government spending has led to inflation and he wants to work to decrease it.

Wied also highlighted his support for finishing Trump’s border wall and reimplementing the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date. 

This report has been updated.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Tony Wied yard signs in Green Bay. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

The race for Wisconsin’s open 8th Congressional District seat pits Democrat Kristin Lyerly, an OB-GYN, against Republican Tony Wied, a former gas station owner, and is testing the power of reproductive rights versus the influence of former President Donald Trump. 

The 8th CD House seat is open this year after Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, who was first elected to the seat in 2016 and easily held it throughout his tenure, resigned from Congress in April. Voters on Election Day will see the candidates on ballots twice. A special election was called to happen concurrently with the general election to fill out the rest of the two-year term left open by Gallagher’s departure.

The district sits in the northeast part of the state encompassing the city of Green Bay and the rest of surrounding Brown County as well as Marinette, Oconto, Menonominee, Shawano, Waupaca, Outagamie, Calumet counties and part of Winnebago County. 

Aaron Weinschenk, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, noted that most analyses of the makeup of the district indicate it leans solidly Republican. The last time a Democrat represented the district was from 2006 through 2010, when Democratic Rep. Steve Kagan held the seat.

“I think that because Democrats have won the seat some people see it as a possibility for Democrats, although I would be pretty surprised if the Democrats win it during this election cycle,” Weinschenk told the Examiner in an email. 

Lyerly has brought reproductive rights to the center of the race, while Wied seeks to focus more on the economy and immigration 

Weinschenk said the issues each candidate is focusing on make sense given that each is talking about subjects where the parties and their respective presidential candidates are perceived as having an advantage. According to September polling from Pew Research Center, Trump holds a 7-point advantage over Harris when it comes to immigration policy. Harris held an 11-point advantage on abortion policy.

“We live in an era where politics is highly nationalized (the correlation between vote share in House elections and presidential elections is incredibly high right now — higher than ever before),” Weinschenk wrote. “National forces seem to matter in lots of different down-ballot races these days (even state supreme court elections).”

Lyerly highlights reproductive health issues, tries to flip district

Even before launching her campaign for Congress, it was no secret Lyerly, an OB-GYN from De Pere, was passionate about reproductive health care.

After the U.S. Supreme Court returned abortion policymaking to individual states with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022, Lyerly moved her practice to Minnesota. She also joined a court case challenging the 1849 state law that ceased abortion services across Wisconsin for more than a year.

Democrats are hopeful that Lyerly’s background and dedication to the issue can help flip the district.

Chair of the Brown County Democratic Party Christy Welch said there is reason to believe the district will flip. Welch is also running in a competitive state legislative race against Republican Benjamin Franklin.

“It’s an open seat with a very strong candidate, who is an expert in an issue that is motivating a lot of voters right now in what’s sure to be a high turnout election. A lot of people are not happy with Republicans in general,” Welch said. “All that together could mean a flip.”

Lyerly said in a September interview with the Examiner that reproductive health is top of mind for voters this year, including in the district with a large Catholic population. 

“As a doctor who has worked with people in this region, Catholics receive abortion care and use contraception at the same rate as everyone else. They just talk about it differently. You’re knocking on doors, and when you open that door and create that space to share that personal story, that’s when you really understand how much it means to people. I think it’s difficult on a macro level to understand the depth of importance that this issue has in this region. But when you’re actually talking with the people, not just young women — dads, young men, old men, old women… people understand,” Lyerly said. “The one fundamental thing that everybody wants is freedom, it all comes back to freedom.”

A recent poll conducted by University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation found that the majority of Wisconsinites oppose criminalizing abortion. According to the survey, 78% of Wisconsinites — including 57% of Republicans and 93% of Democrats — do not want abortion to be criminalized before fetal viability.

Lyerly spoke about a 70-year-old farm wife in Shawano who gave her a note describing her dislike for abortion and her desire to have eight children. But she was only able to have three due to health complications.

“She understood that pregnancy is hard. Reproductive health is hard and you can’t take abortion out of health care,” Lyerly said. “What we can do is we can educate, we can support. We can make sure people have access to health care.” 

If she won the seat, Lyerly said she would “love” to work with Sen. Tammy Baldwin to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill that would create a federal protection for abortion similar to the one established under Roe v. Wade. 

During an October debate, Wied avoided staking out a position on what Wisconsin abortion policy should be, and Lyerly seized the moment to highlight the answer as a “cop out.” Wied said he supports the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the decision about whether abortion should be restricted should remain up to individual states.

“We all know the person who pulls Tony Wied’s strings is proud of taking Roe v. Wade down,” Lyerly said, referring to Trump. The former president has bragged about the role he played in helping overturn Roe v. Wade, yet he has also been stepping back from some of that rhetoric as he tries to win over voters. Trump recently said that some state bans are “too tough.” 

Asked to clarify, Wied refused to say what he thinks Wisconsin’s law should be. He also said Lyerly should run for the state Assembly if she wants to work on the issue.

“I’m running for the United States House of Representatives. Our job is to present spending bills and oversee the agencies at the federal level. I am not for continuing to add more power to the federal government… This is a state issue. It will continue to be a state issue,” Wied said. 

Chair of the Door County Republican Party Stephanie Soucek said she doubts the issue will be enough to “move the needle” in the district this year, though she said that Democrats’ messaging about Wied’s views on the issue have included “hyperbolic, unfair accusations.” For example, she said the claims that Republicans are going to ban fertility treatments and contraception aren’t where most Republicans are.

“There are some people out there that are very single-issue voters,” Soucek said. “I think there’s enough stuff going on that is affecting people’s lives every day, so they’re seeing things and experiencing things that I think will override… the abortion issue. It’s just a matter of getting the message out there, and pushing back against some of those claims.” 

Republicans focus on immigration, economy and Trump

From meeting the Republican former president at an April rally in Green Bay to propose his candidacy to clinching a public endorsement to coincide with his decision to run, to leaning heavily on being the only “Trump-endorsed” candidate in the primary, Wied has made former President Donald Trump central to his campaign.

Wied won a three-way primary in August against a current and a former state lawmaker to secure the Republican nomination. Wied’s campaign did not respond to an interview request from the Examiner. 

Trump’s influence on Wied’s campaign has been prominent as the political newcomer has focused on the economy and immigration as two of his top priorities throughout his campaign. 

While Lyerly has focused heavily on reproductive health issues, Wied has highlighted the U.S.-Mexico border. He has said that immigration policy was better under Trump, and that he would support finishing Trump’s border wall. He said he also supports reimplementing the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date

“I believe in legal immigration, but right now we have to close this border,” Wied said during the debate. “This administration, right now… is a tragedy.”

When it comes to the economy, Wied has said that he supports lowering taxes, including for businesses and wants to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which Democrats have complained unfairly benefited the rich. He has also said that government spending has led to inflation and he wants to work to decrease it.

“Inflation is really a tax and it’s a tax that affects the poor and the middle class,” Wied said. 

When it comes to the congressional race, Soucek said Wied has been doing a good job articulating the Republican message on those two issues. 

The county party, Soucek said, has been working to deliver a win for the Republican candidates up and down the ballot, including Wied and Trump, by knocking doors and making phone calls. She said that she thinks Wied has been focusing a little less on his Trump endorsement in the general election campaign.

“I think he felt it was going to be helpful to him in the primary. He definitely supports President Trump, but I think that was a strategy he felt would be beneficial to him… Obviously it seemed to work. Now, I think his approach has been, ‘We’re going to talk about all these issues that are impacting everyday Wisconsinites,’ and really, you know, broaden his message more,” Soucek said. 

When it comes to the presidential election, she said that she also recognizes the responsibility that comes with Door County serving as a “bellwether” in the presidential election. The county has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election since 1996. 

“There’s just two very different paths and different views on America and where we should be going, and so for Republicans there are many different issues that we feel like if we don’t win …. it’s going to be hard to reverse… Look at illegal immigration and just over 10 million people and maybe more that have come across the border,” Soucek said.  

Soucek said she is feeling “pretty good” about Wied keeping the seat in Republican hands. She noted that Republican candidates down ballot tend to outperform the top of the ticket, including when Gallagher won in the district.

“I’m not going to take anything for granted. We don’t want to assume anything, so we’re going to all continue to work hard for all of our candidates, but in our area, I do feel fairly confident that we’ll be able to get him across the finish line,” Soucek said.

Lyerly, however, is banking that Wied’s alignment with Trump won’t connect with voters in the district.

“My opponent is an extremist. He is not someone who is independent, and in fact, if you look at his yard signs, they don’t even lead with his name,” Lyerly told the Examiner. Some of Wied’s  yard signs feature his Trump endorsement above his name. “That is not what the people of this region want. They want a moderate.”

In recent weeks, Lyerly has sought to emphasize that she is an “independent thinker.” 

In a recent campaign ad, Lyerly led with her support for reproductive health care access and Wied’s openness to allowing states to decide to implement bans, and then said she would also work to “secure our border,” ban price gouging and protect Second Amendment rights.

Lyerly has said the bipartisan border security bill, which failed to advance out of the Senate after Trump urged Republicans to kill it, would have started to solve some of the problems with immigration as it would have funded 1,500 new personnel in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and created a more efficient path to citizenship for some. She has said she would work in Congress to help stop fentanyl from coming into the country. During the debate, Wied said the bipartisan immigration bill “didn’t go far enough.”

When it comes to addressing the economy, Lyerly has said she supports expanding the child tax credit, lowering taxes on the middle class and raising taxes for more wealthy Americans. 

“It’s easy to pigeonhole me, as an OB-GYN doctor, as someone who only cares about reproductive rights, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Lyerly said.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022 ended federal abortion rights. (Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)

Editor’s note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these “swing states” may decide the future of the country.

Dr. Kristin Lyerly’s placenta detached from her uterus when she was 17 weeks pregnant with her fourth son in 2007. Her doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, gave the devastated recent medical school graduate one option: to deliver and bury her dead child. But she requested a dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, knowing it would be less invasive and risky than being induced. And she couldn’t fathom the agony of holding her tiny dead baby.

But Lyerly’s doctor declined, giving her a direct window into the many ways Americans lack real choice when it comes to their reproductive health decisions. At the time of this miscarriage, Lyerly was getting a master’s degree in public health before beginning her residency. She was able to get a D&E at the same hospital by a different doctor. As an OB-GYN, she soon would learn how much abortion is stigmatized and limited throughout the country, but also regularly sought after and sometimes medically necessary, including among her many conservative Catholic patients in northeastern Wisconsin.

And then, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, prompting states such as Wisconsin to resurrect dormant abortion bans from the 19th and 20th centuries. Lyerly’s job changed overnight. She stopped working as an OB-GYN in Sheboygan and moved her practice to Minnesota. She became a plaintiff in a lawsuit over an 1849 Wisconsin feticide law being interpreted as an abortion ban, which has since been blocked.

When a congressional seat opened up in a competitive Wisconsin district this year, the 54-year-old mother of four joined the post-Dobbs wave of women running for office to restore reproductive rights, which this election cycle includes another OB-GYN and a patient denied abortion care. Lyerly’s decision to run is emblematic of the nationwide backlash against the Dobbs decision, which altered the reproductive health care landscape, with providers, patients and advocates turning to the ballot box to change the laws to restore and broaden access.

Wisconsin is among seven swing states expected to determine the country’s next president and federal leaders. And in many ways they’re being viewed as referendums on how much the right to have an abortion can move the needle in a tight presidential election.

“What we’ve seen in every election since the Dobbs decision is that abortion is at top of mind for voters — and it’s not just helping voters decide who or what to vote for. It’s actually a turnout driver,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at national lobbying group Reproductive Freedom for All. The group is investing in down-ballot races in conservative districts such as Lyerly’s, buoyed by cash and momentum from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ reproductive-rights-focused campaign.

Anti-abortion money is also flowing through the swing states, led by lobbying groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Women Speak Out PAC. Some of their messaging, adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and many GOP candidates, often paints Democrats as champions of infanticide, focusing on the rarest and most controversial type of abortions, those performed in the third trimester.

But aside from that rhetoric, many Republican candidates have been quiet on an issue that for years motivated their staunchest supporters.

SBA Pro-Life America declined an interview for this story but shared a press release outlining the organization’s strategy trying to reach 10 million voters in Montana, Ohio and all of the battleground states except for Nevada. The group endorsed 28 House candidates total this cycle, and a fifth of them are in North Carolina. One of North Carolina’s endorsed candidates in a toss-up race is Republican GOP challenger Laurie Buckhout, who does not mention her abortion stance on her campaign website, and did not return a request for comment.

“Our field team is talking to persuadable and low propensity pro-life voters to urge them to cast their votes against the party that endorses abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months,” said SBA’s national field team director Patricia Miles in the press statement.

But throughout this election cycle, polls in the swing states have shown bipartisan support for abortion rights, especially when voters are educated about what abortion bans do. Voters in more than half of the states expected to determine the presidential winner have, to varying degrees, lost access to abortion. And abortion-rights activists across these states told States Newsroom they are determined to protect that access, or to get it back.

Arizona sees backlash after GOP upholds Civil War-era abortion ban

In Arizona, the Dobbs decision resurrected a Civil War-era ban that allowed abortions only to save a pregnant patient’s life.

Legislators repealed the law, but abortion-rights supporters fought for more certainty. This fall, Arizonans will vote on a proposed ballot measure that would protect access until fetal viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Now, two of the judges who upheld the abortion ban — Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King — are up for reelection, in races infused with national cash by groups such as RFA and Planned Parenthood. Also on the ballot is Proposition 137, which would give lifetime appointments to state judges. The Republican-initiated measure has garnered controversy in part because it is retroactive to this year’s election, so if approved, any retention bids would be nullified even if the majority votes to unseat the judge.

Ballot organizers turned in more than 800,000 signatures, double the required number, and overcame opponents’ legal challenges to qualify the abortion-rights ballot measure, Proposition 139. Abortion is legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, but there are many state restrictions that the Arizona Abortion Access Act would eliminate, such as a ban on any abortions sought for fetal genetic abnormalities and a blocked law from 2021 granting personhood status to fertilized eggs.

Recent deaths reignite controversy over Georgia’s abortion ban

This month, ProPublica reported on the deaths in 2022 of two Georgia women who suffered rare complications after they obtained mifepristone and misoprostol for early-term medication abortions. Both were trying to navigate a new state law that banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy and threatened medical providers with up to a decade in prison.

In one case, doctors at an Atlanta-area hospital refused for 20 hours to perform a routine dilation and curettage, a D&C, to clear the patient’s uterus when her body hadn’t expelled all the fetal tissue. In the other, a woman who had ordered the pills online suffered days of pain at home, fearful of seeking medical care. Both women left children behind.

Georgia’s law permits abortion if the patient’s life is at risk, but medical providers have said the law’s language is unclear, tying their hands and threatening the health of patients who have high-risk pregnancies.

Their cases, which a state medical review committee found to be “preventable,” have galvanized activists in the state.

Harris spoke at length about the women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, at a recent campaign event in Atlanta. She blamed their deaths on Georgia’s law, calling it “the Trump abortion ban,” because the former president appointed three justices he’d promised would overturn Roe v. Wade.

“This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis,” Harris said. “Understand what a law like this means: Doctors have to wait until the patient is at death’s door before they take action. … You’re saying that good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health care provider will only start providing that care when you’re about to die?”

Trump has not commented on the deaths. He has repeatedly said this year that abortion access should be left to the states. He has dismissed the idea of a federal abortion ban, but during the presidential debate, he refused to say whether he would veto such legislation.

At a recent rally in North Carolina, Trump addressed “our great women” (a demographic he’s trailing among), saying, “you will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and with the vote of the people.”

Abortion was a driving concern in this spring’s qualifying process for Georgia’s 2024 legislative elections — the first opportunity for aspiring state lawmakers to jump on the ballot in response to their state’s severe abortion restrictions.

Melita Easters, the executive director and founding chair of Georgia WIN List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights, was already calling this year’s general election “Roevember” back when President Joe Biden was still the party’s nominee.

But Easters told States Newsroom that having Harris on the ticket instead has elevated the issue of reproductive freedom even more and “has breathed new life into down-ballot campaigns.” Easters said she is especially encouraged after a Democratic state House candidate in Alabama who ran on abortion rights flipped a Huntsville seat during a special election in March.

Michigan Democrats continue betting on abortion after 2022 successes

Michigan was one of the earliest states post-Dobbs to show that abortion rights could be a strong election-winning issue.

Months after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Michiganders overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to protect abortion rights in the state constitution; reelected Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vowed to prioritize reproductive freedom; and voted for Democratic majorities in both chambers, giving the party a legislative trifecta for the first time in 40 years. In 2023, the legislature repealed a 1931 abortion ban that was still on the books and passed the Reproductive Health Act, expanding abortion access in the state.

This year, state and national abortion-rights groups have campaigned in toss-up congressional districts across Michigan, warning that a federal ban would supersede the state’s protections.

State judicial races, meanwhile, have attracted millions of dollars, as they could determine partisan control of the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrats secured a slim 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court in 2020 after Republican-nominated justices controlled the court for most of the last few decades.

Nevada reproductive rights activists hope ballot initiative improves turnout

In Nevada, abortion remains legal through 24 weeks and beyond for specific health reasons. In 2023, the state’s Democratic-led legislature passed a law shielding patients and providers from out-of-state investigations related to abortion care; it was signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.

Seeking to cement these rights in the state constitution, reproductive health advocates mobilized a ballot initiative campaign, which they hope will drive voter turnout that would affect the presidential and down-ballot races. Constitutional amendments proposed through an initiative petition must be passed by voters twice, so if voters approve Question 6 in November, they will have to approve it again in 2026.

In the state’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen currently edges Republican Sam Brown, who has had inconsistent positions on abortion and reproductive rights but opposes the abortion-rights measure.

National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life of America have notably not focused on Nevada in their campaign strategies.

Growing Latinx voting bloc in North Carolina 

In North Carolina many Democrats are campaigning in opposition to a 12-week abortion ban that the Republican-majority legislature passed last year after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.

In a high-profile race for governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein faces Republican opponent Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has previously said he believes “there is no compromise on abortion,” according to NC Newsline. The lieutenant governor is now facing calls to withdraw from the race over comments made on a pornography website years ago, and Stein has started racking up endorsements from prominent state Republicans.

Iliana Santillan, a political organizer who supports abortion rights, has focused on mobilizing Latinos, a growing voting bloc in the state. The executive director of progressive nonprofit El Pueblo and its political sister group La Fuerza NC told States Newsroom she’s talked to many young women motivated to secure their own reproductive rights, including her college-age daughter. She said the Latinx community faces additional reproductive care barriers such as language and transportation, with undocumented immigrants scared to cross state lines without a driver’s license.

Santillan also said there’s a misconception that all Latinos are against abortion because they’re Catholic, when in reality opposition to abortion skews among older voters.

“With older folks, the messaging that we’ve tested that has worked is: ‘We don’t want politicians to have a say in what we do with our bodies,’” Santillan said.

Motivated voters in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is the largest swing state and considered essential to win the White House.

In a poll conducted this month by Spotlight PA and MassINC Polling Group, abortion ranked as the fifth most-important concern in the presidential race for likely voters, with 49% naming it as among their top issues.

The issue is far more important to Democrats, however, with 85% calling it a top issue compared with 17% of Republicans. Among those who aren’t registered with either major party, 49% called it a top issue.

In 2022, voters surprised pundits by sending enough Democrats to the state House to flip it blue. Voters were responding to the Dobbs decision, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told Pennsylvania Capital-Star at a recent Harris campaign event.

Shapiro also won in 2022, and so far his administration has supported over-the-counter birth control pills and ended the state’s contract with a network of anti-abortion counseling centers. He said his administration would not defend a current state law that prohibits state Medicaid funding from being used for abortions.

Abortion isn’t protected under Pennsylvania’s state constitution, but it remains legal up to 24 weeks’ gestation, and clinics there have seen an influx of out-of-state patients.

Wisconsin abortion services resume

After more than a year without abortion access, reproductive health clinics in Wisconsin resumed abortion services in September 2023, shortly after a judge ruled that the 1849 state law that had widely been interpreted as an abortion ban, applied to feticide and not abortion. A state Supreme Court race a few months earlier saw Justice Janet Protasiewicz win in a landslide after campaigning on reproductive freedom.

Seven months later when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his resignation, Lyerly threw her hat in the ring, running as the only Democrat in the 8th District. She now faces businessman Tony Wied. Although in the past it was considered a swing district, it has leaned conservative in recent election cycles. With the redrawn maps and national support, Lyerly said it’s a competitive race.

“We have the potential to really fix, not just reproductive health care, but health care,” Lyerly told States Newsroom. “Bring the stories of our patients forward and help our colleagues understand, build those coalitions and help to gain consensus that’s going to drive forward health care reform in this country.”

Wied’s campaign website does not mention abortion or his policy proposals related to health care, though the words “Trump-endorsed” appear prominently and abundantly throughout the site. Wied hasn’t said much about the issue beyond it should be a state issue, but the two are scheduled to debate this Friday night. His campaign declined an interview.

Currently the only OB-GYNs who serve in Congress oppose abortion. If Lyerly wins in November, she would not only change that (potentially alongside Minnesota Sen. Kelly Morrison) but also could help flip party control in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Most Wisconsin voters oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability, according to a poll this year by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation.

Patricia McFarland, 76, knows what it’s like to live without abortion access. For more than 50 years, the retired college teacher kept her pre-Roe abortion a secret, having grown up in a conservative Irish Catholic family like many of her suburban Milwaukee neighbors.

McFarland told States Newsroom she has been politically active most of her life, but the Dobbs ruling dredged up the physical and emotional trauma from the illegal procedure she had alone in Mexico City. Now, McFarland rarely leaves home without her “Roe Roe Roe Your Vote” button, engaging anyone who will talk to her about the dangers of criminalizing pregnancy.

The mother and grandmother said she’s been canvassing and doing informational sessions with her activist group the PERSISTers, as well as the League of Women Voters. As she has warned fellow Wisconsities about the federal power over their reproductive freedom, she said the enthusiasm for abortion rights in her state is palpable.

“For women my age,” McFarland said, “we don’t want our grandchildren to lose their ability to decide when to become a mother.”

Georgia Recorder’s Jill Nolin contributed to this report.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE