In Missouri's election this week, higher voter turnout meant stronger support for preserving access to abortion.
And where opposition to abortion ran higher, more voters seemed to stay home.
That's just one takeaway from Amendment 3, in which Missouri voters were asked for the second time in three years whether they should have a constitutional right to reproductive healthcare.
The first time, in 2024, 52% of voters supported a constitutional amendment establishing the right to "reproductive freedom," making Missouri the first state in the country to reverse a near-total ban on abortion.
But Missouri lawmakers weren't convinced. They argued that voters didn't understand what they were doing in 2024, and that given a second try, voters would reverse course and allow the state to reinstate an abortion ban.
So those lawmakers put Amendment 3 on the 2026 ballot, which would have repealed the constitutional right to reproductive healthcare that had just been approved by voters in 2024. The amendment would have banned abortion except in some extreme cases.
Missouri voters doubled down on protecting abortion by a wider margin this week. An even larger majority of voters than in 2024 — 55%, according to preliminary results on Nov. 4 — voted to keep abortion rights in the state constitution.
Here are three maps that break down this year's election results, how they compare to the 2024 vote and what it means for Missouri.
Statewide, 55% of voters rejected Amendment 3 in 2026, which would have repealed the constitutional right to abortion enacted by voters in 2024.
A majority of voters in 13 counties rejected the proposed rollback of abortion protections. That includes Greene, Saline, Cass and Jefferson counties. A narrow majority of voters in those four counties voted against the constitutional right to abortion in 2024, but they chose to protect that right in 2026.
The city of St. Louis had the strongest opposition to Amendment 3 in 2026, with 85% of voters rejecting the amendment. Jackson County came second, with 70% voting "no."
Wright, Bollinger and Osage counties showed the strongest support for Amendment 3 in 2026. Three out of four voters supported restricting abortion.
Stronger support for abortion rights in all but 11 counties
Missouri voters defended the right to abortion by a stronger margin in 2026 than in the 2024 vote that established the right. That year, 52% of voters supported Amendment 3, whereas 55% of voters rejected the proposed repeal in 2026.
Abortion rights supporters improved their margins in all but 11 counties. They lost the most ground in Atchison County, in the northwest corner of the state, where 41% of voters supported abortion in 2024 but only 36% voted to protect it in 2026.
Abortion rights supporters made the most ground in Livingston and Grundy counties in north-central Missouri, where the vote swung by 10 percentage points toward abortion protections. Still, a majority of voters in those two counties supported repealing abortion protections.
Voter turnout held strong in Democratic cities
Statewide, fewer voters cast ballots in the 2026 election than in the 2024 election. About 6 million voters cast ballots on the 2024 abortion amendment, whereas only 4.2 million cast ballots on the 2026 amendment.
There was a drop in voter turnout in every county in Missouri, which is typical. Presidential election years tend to yield higher voter turnout than midterm years.
However, voter turnout dropped the least in the state's Democratic strongholds, including around Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbia and Springfield. There, voter turnout in the abortion question was between 73% and 78% of 2024 levels.
Voter turnout dropped by nearly half in Vernon, New Madrid and Dunklin counties.
Bonus scatterplot: Turnout was strongest where voters supported abortion rights
The eight counties that most strongly rejected the proposed repeal of abortion protections in 2026 were the same eight counties that had the strongest voter turnout compared to 2024.
Those counties are St. Louis, Platte, Jackson, Clay, Boone, St. Charles and Greene counties, as well as the city of St. Louis.
Voter turnout tended to be higher in areas that supported abortion protections, and it tended to be lower in areas that opposed abortion protections.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
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