Abortion question boosts early Kansas voting for primary

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Early voting is surging in Kansas ahead of next week’s statewide abortion vote and the electorate so far is leaning more Democratic than usual.

More than 2½ times as many people had cast early ballots as of Tuesday compared to the same point in the 2018 mid-term primary, the Kansas secretary of state's office reported. Voters will decide Aug. 2 whether to amend the Kansas Constitution to allow the Legislature to further restrict or ban abortion.

Polling has suggested that Democrats are far stronger supporters of abortion-rights than Republicans, and Democrats so far make up 42% of the people who have cast ballots early in Kansas, compared to 44% for Republicans. Over the past 10 years, Republicans have typically cast twice as many ballots in a primary election as Democrats. Unaffiliated voters — who can't participate in a partisan primary unless they pick a party label — have cast nearly 14% of the early votes.

The Kansas vote is the first statewide referendum on abortion policy since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June. In Douglas County, among a few Democratic strongholds in Republican-leaning Kansas and home to the liberal main University of Kansas campus, 5,800 people already have cast early in-person ballots. The normal figure for a primary is about 2,200, said County Clerk Jamie Shew, who oversees its elections.

“Very rarely do you see an event that has a clear impact like that," said Shew, an elected Democrat.

A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the start of July showed that 33% of Democrats interviewed considered abortion and women's rights a top issue, up from just 3% in 2020.

An AP-NORC poll in December showed that 69% of Democrats but only 27% of Republicans said an abortion should be...