Why Abortion Rights Won in Three States That Voted for Trump

As seven of the 10 states that voted on reproductive rights passed ballot measures to protect access, the country reelected former President Donald Trump—a man who has claimed credit for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade two years ago. Trump saw victory in four states that passed protections, highlighting what some experts call a “cognitive dissonance” on how people feel about abortion and the candidates they choose to elect.

Arizona, Missouri, and Montana will amend their state constitutions to enshrine the right to abortion until fetal viability (which is around 24 weeks of pregnancy), with exceptions after that if the pregnant person’s life or Health is at risk. Nevada voters also backed a similar measure, but will need to pass it again in 2026 in order to officially amend the state constitution.

And yet, Trump won almost 59% of the vote in both Missouri and Montana, and about 52% of the vote in Arizona, according to the Associated Press. Nationally, about 38% of Trump voters in the 2024 election also said they believe abortion should be legal in all or most situations, according to an AP VoteCast survey.

Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), says the results indicate a “cognitive dissonance” on this issue. “There is a disconnect between voters’ actions,” Schifeling says. “I think it’s going to take a minute before we have a satisfying answer to how these two contradictory things could be true.”

For Arizona and Missouri, the newly-passed amendments are expected to upend existing restrictions on abortion—Arizona currently prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and Missouri has a near-total ban. Montana already allows abortion until fetal viability, but advocates said that the measure would prevent state lawmakers from trying to restrict access in the future, which they had attempted to do in recent years. The measures passed with nearly 62%, 52%, and 58% of the vote in Arizona, Missouri, and Montana, respectively, according to the AP.

Political and reproductive rights experts have a few theories to explain why voters in those three states supported abortion access while backing a candidate who has applauded the Supreme Court decision that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. Many emphasize that the results from the 2024 election indicate something Americans have already known: there is broad support for abortion rights in the country across political party lines. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say that abortion should be legal in all or most situations, according to 2024 data from the Pew Research Center. 

But for some voters, it’s a question of priorities.

“When you give voters a chance to vote directly on the issue, you see a track with the overwhelming support there is for reproductive rights across the country,” Schifeling says. “However, candidate races are never just about one thing, and that was certainly true this year.”

Issues like the economy and immigration have emerged as two of the top concerns on voters’ minds this election cycle, followed by abortion. Rachel Janfaza, a youth political analyst who has held listening sessions with young people in various states since 2022, says that she spoke to some young men in Arizona who were undecided voters that supported the right to abortion, but also prioritized issues like the cost of living. “I do think many of these young men are pro-choice and believe it’s up to a woman what she does with her own body,” Janfaza says. “I do think that for them, it was not as motivating of an issue in their vote calculus as was the economy or immigration.”

Samara Klar, a political Science professor at the University of Arizona, says that Arizona is a “unique state in the variation it expresses ideologically in elections.” Trump won Arizona, but in the state’s race for the U.S. Senate, Democratic candidate Ruben Gallego is currently leading Republican Kari Lake (the AP has not yet called the race).  In the 2020 election, President Joe Biden won the state. “Obviously, the Democrats were hoping that abortion was going to give them more momentum, but it’s a really uphill battle in Arizona,” Klar says. At the same time, many Arizonans, including Republicans, support abortion rights. Some voters may have separated this issue from their presidential pick. “By having abortion on the ballot, it allows pro-choice Republicans to both support a Republican candidate but also support reproductive rights, so you don’t have to channel your support for reproductive rights through a presidential candidate; you can keep them as two distinct issues,” Klar says.

Klar says she thinks the messaging from the Republican Party and the Trump campaign on abortion got through to some Arizona voters. While Trump has, in the past, indicated support for national restrictions, he attempted to soften that stance in this election cycle and said that the decision should be left up to the states. “I think that does resonate with Republicans who say, ‘Fine, we know this is going to be a state’s rights. As an Arizonan, I want abortion legal in my state, and I will vote for Trump for whatever reasons, whether it be conservative social policies, economic policies—whatever the reason might be,’ ” Klar says.

Jamille Fields Allsbrook, an assistant professor of law at Saint Louis University, offered similar explanations for the results in Missouri. She says it’s possible that voters didn’t believe that Trump posed a threat to abortion access. “Donald Trump, famously back in 2016 …  said that he would appoint justices on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, and that’s exactly what happened,” Fields Allsbrook says. “But for whatever reason, voters did not feel that he was ideologically really opposed to abortion. And some of that has to do with the way he’s presented himself now.”

Fields Allsbrook also says that some voters may think that, because they had the ability in their state to protect abortion access through the ballot initiative, abortion rights would be protected. (Any national restrictions on abortion would supersede state constitutional protections.) 

Montana is a state that, in general, has been moving to the right for years, according to Sara Rushing, a political Science professor at Montana State University Bozeman. Many people from states like California and Washington have moved to Montana over the past few years, some of whom may be more right-leaning but also value their right to abortion, which is protected in their home states, Rushing says. She adds that Montana’s ballot measure didn’t change existing laws as similar initiatives did in other states, since the Montana Supreme Court had ruled in 1999 that the state constitution protected the right to abortion, so people may have been more inclined to vote for it.

Rushing echoed some of the possible explanations that other experts proposed—that Trump walking back his previous comments on abortion and insisting that the issue should be left up to the states resonated with Montana voters. “I think he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth, which leaves people able to sort of quote what they want from him,” Rushing says of Trump’s stance on abortion. 

And she says having the issue on the ballot can allow voters to separate abortion from Trump as a candidate: “You can kind of have your cake and eat it too.”