2m ago / 5:00 PM EST
NBC News Exit Poll: Majority of Ohio voters think abortion should be legal
Abortion is on the ballot in Ohio today, and a majority of voters think it should be legal in all or most cases, according to the NBC News Exit Poll of early and Election Day voters.
About 6 in 10 voters said they think abortion should be legal, with 29% saying it should be legal in all cases and 33% saying it should be legal in most cases. About a quarter said they think abortion should be illegal in most cases, while 11% said it should be illegal in all cases.
Issue 1 on the ballot today asks if the right to an abortion should be added to Ohio’s constitution. Polls close at 7:30 p.m. ET; NBC News has not made a projection on the outcome.
2m ago / 5:00 PM EST
Ohio GOP Senate candidate says ballot measure would let a rapist ‘force’ a woman to get an abortion
Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno falsely claimed in a recent interview that Issue 1 — the ballot measure seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution — would allow a rapist to “force” a woman to have an abortion.
The remark by Moreno, a businessman, is the latest from groups and individuals opposed to Issue 1 to mischaracterize the proposal by tying it to parental rights.
“As a dad of two girls, it’s about having that girl be able to be raped and having a rapist force her to have an abortion — all without your consent — as a minor,” Moreno said in an Oct. 12 episode of the RestoreLiberty.US podcast.
Earlier in the podcast, Moreno mischaracterized Issue 1 as being about “on-demand abortion, late-term abortion, stripping parental rights.” If passed, he said, it will have “opened a door to transgender surgeries, transgender mutilation of children.”
Nonpartisan legal experts say his remarks are rife with inaccuracies and falsehoods.
Read the full story here.
12m ago / 4:49 PM EST
Vivek Ramaswamy says he’s voting against abortion rights and marijuana legalization ballot measures in Ohio
Speaking to NBC News outside of a polling location, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he would vote against major ballot measures on abortion rights and marijuana legalization.
“I’ll be voting ‘no’ on both,” he said when asked about how he intends to vote on both issues, adding he thinks “it is appropriate for the abortion issue to be handled by states.”
“But I think it’s also important for the states to come up with the correct answer here,” he added. “And I reject any constitutional measure, like the one being proposed today, that could be interpreted to allow abortion up to the life, up to the time of birth. That’s wrong.”
“Parental consent is also paramount,” he said. “The fact that this would strip back parental consent rights, I do think parents have rights over minors to be able to help them make those right decisions.”
Asked about the ballot measure on marijuana legalization, Ramaswamy said the issue should only be discussed at the federal level.
“I think that there’s room for reasonable discussion at the federal level about what these policies should be, but I don’t think we’re doing a service to the rule of law in this country, where we have continual departures” between state laws and federal law, he said.
“I am open to a rational discussion about what, for example, veterans who suffer from certain conditions of pain or PTSD might be have available to them. Let’s have that discussion at the federal level,” he said. “That’s where the federal drug laws are. But right now, at the state level, I do not think it is healthy for our country to see further chaos and confusion and conflicts between state and federal law.”
24m ago / 4:37 PM EST
NBC News Exit Poll in Ohio: Our methodology
The NBC News Exit Poll was conducted with voters as they left polling places across Ohio on Election Day.
To account for the high number of early and absentee voters and to ensure a sample that represents the ways Americans cast their ballots, the exit poll also includes extensive interviews with in-person early voters at 80 voting centers across the state, as well as a telephone survey to capture the estimated 25% of Ohio voters who cast an absentee ballot.
The Ohio exit poll will include about 3,600 voters in all: approximately 2,800 Election Day voters and 800 early voters.
43m ago / 4:18 PM EST
In Ohio, abortion backers hope for another victory in their unbroken winning streak
One of the marquee Election Day contests is in Ohio, where voters will decide whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
A victory would continue a winning streak for abortion rights supporters. In the nearly 17 months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, candidates and ballot measures backing abortion rights have won in every election, including in conservative states like Kentucky and Kansas — as well as in an August special election in Ohio that served as a proxy battle ahead of today’s vote.
At stake is Issue 1, a proposed amendment that would insert language in the state constitution codifying the right “to one’s own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion” and barring the state from “burdening, penalizing or prohibiting” those rights. The proposed measure specifies that abortion would remain prohibited after fetal viability, but includes exceptions to protect the mother’s life or health.
Read the full story here.
54m ago / 4:07 PM EST
Eyes on 2024: Virginia to test Youngkin’s message and political power
Tuesday’s legislative elections in Virginia will provide key tests for both parties’ messaging ahead of 2024, as well as the state’s GOP governor.
“I think they’re the most important elections in America because these issues that are so important to Virginians are also the ones that are going to be so important to Americans next year,” Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
The battles for the state House of Delegates, which Republicans control, and the state Senate, which Democrats control, could come down to a handful of districts. And they’ll test Youngkin’s own political power as he’s brushed off questions about his presidential ambitions.
NBC’s Gary Grumbach and Katherine Koretski caught up with Youngkin over the weekend while he was campaigning in the Senate’s competitive 10th District, where GOP state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant is running against Democrat Schuyler Van Valkenburg.
Read the full story here.
1h ago / 3:47 PM EST
Two clashing forces shape battle for Virginia — and what to expect in 2024
So much has stayed the same, politically, since Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won Virginia two years ago — most American voters say the nation is headed in the wrong direction, President Joe Biden remains unpopular and former President Donald Trump continues to loom over the political landscape.
But so much has changed, too. Most dramatically, the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion, which resulted in a more energized Democratic electorate that helped the party in the 2022 midterms and in special elections across the country this year.
And today’s state legislative races in Virginia, where control of the Legislature is up for grabs (and with it, Youngkin’s national ambitions), could hinge on which political force is greater.
Read the full story here.
1h ago / 4:00 PM EST
In deep-red Kentucky, Democrats bet abortion will be a winning issue in the governor’s race
Last fall, voters in deep-red Kentucky delivered a win for Democrats when they rejected an amendment that would have written opposition to abortion into the state constitution.
This year, state Democrats are again banking that voters will side with protecting abortion rights. They’re putting the issue front and center in the closely watched governor’s race on Nov. 7, hoping it will help boost Gov. Andy Beshear to another term.
The race between Beshear, the popular Democratic incumbent, and his Republican challenger, Daniel Cameron, the conservative attorney general, has emerged as yet another test of whether abortion rights can help Democrats in otherwise tough political terrain.
Read the full story here.
2h ago / 3:11 PM EST
Robust turnout in competitive Virginia district
Of the 3,200 people who are registered to vote at one precinct in Henrico County, outside of Richmond, more than 1,200 people have already voted today, and 800 people voted during the 45-day early voting period.
Election officials at this polling location say they’ve been doing this for more than a decade here and are “very impressed” with this level of turnout.
Youngkin’s team is predicting this area’s Senate race to be one of the closest in the state. Republican state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, an OB-GYN, is running for re-election against Democratic Delegate Schuyler Van Valkenburg.
Youngkin is hoping to hold the Assembly and flip the Senate, which would allow for many of his conservative priorities to move through the General Assembly with ease.
2h ago / 3:09 PM EST
In Mississippi’s governor’s race, health care a top issue
For some voters in here Mississippi’s capital, the state’s high uninsured rates and struggling hospitals were defining issues in today’s gubernatorial election.
At a precinct in Jackson’s Fondren neighborhood, Evan Parker, 35, said he’s backing Presley, the Democratic nominee who has made Medicaid expansion a focal point of his campaign.
Republican incumbent Gov. Reeves opposes expansion.
As an alternative, Reeves announced a plan that his administration estimates will send nearly $700 million to the state’s hospitals, but unlike expansion wouldn’t provide health insurance.
Parker, a professor at a local college, said Medicaid expansion provided him with coverage while he was “a poor graduate student” living in Louisiana. He said moving back to Mississippi and seeing people “suffering without health care” was a “grave injustice.”
“I think health care is a right,” Parker said.
Mississippi is one of 10 states that has not expanded the public health insurance program. Almost 11% of the state’s residents lack health insurance.
