MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Democrats, as you've certainly heard, are bolstered by last week's election results, showing support for their candidates across the country. At the state level, however, they're reviewing mixed opinions on two issues largely backed by Democrats - abortion and transgender rights. Bram Sable-Smith from our partner KFF Health News reports from St. Louis.
BRAM SABLE-SMITH, BYLINE: Missouri is often considered a deeply red state. But voters here just rejected an initiative that combined bans on most abortions and on transgender healthcare for minors. Meanwhile, in the state of Washington, often blue in shorthand, voters passed restrictions on trans kids in youth sports. Seems counterintuitive, right? So what to make of these disparate outcomes?
SHELBY CHESTNUT: Our research shows that we greatly underestimate red states' ability to show up for bodily autonomy and trans rights, and we overestimate blue states.
SABLE-SMITH: Shelby Chestnut's executive director of the National Transgender Law Center. He says years before last week's election, LGBTQ+ advocates in Missouri started going door to door to talk to voters. The sustained organizing was prompted by efforts in 28 states, including Missouri, to pass restrictions on trans healthcare for minors. This year, they're canvassing targeted people who are supportive of abortion access but more ambivalent on trans issues. Chestnut says it paid off.
CHESTNUT: And to me, what it says is, we need to build the infrastructure in states, particularly blue states, to defeat these ballot measures.
SABLE-SMITH: Experts are also trying to unspool how motivating abortion and trans issues really were in this election. That's a little tricky in Missouri, where the two were explicitly tied together into a single ballot question. But a survey of Missouri voters tried to tease it out, and what they found was that voters on both sides said the most important issue was abortion. But trans issues may not have been what sent people to the polls. In fact, outgoing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters last week he knew Republican candidates were in trouble when he saw they were spending hundreds of millions of dollars on, quote, "transgender ads."
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RON DESANTIS: That was not the issue motivating voters. And it was kind of like an attempt to just scare Republicans to vote.
SABLE-SMITH: While that may have been true for candidates, voters still sent mixed signals on ballot measures around the country. Four states passed restrictions on trans kids in youth sports. Colorado banned gender-affirming surgeries for minors, and Idaho kept its ban on abortion.
I'm Bram Sable-Smith.
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MARTIN: Bram is with our partner KFF Health News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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