Susie Lee

Stacey Abrams at a Las Vegas event for Question 6, which would enshrine abortion rights in the Nevada constitution.Nina Martin

Decked out in a sparkly plaid shirt and a dangly necklace urging “VOTE,” US Rep. Susie Lee was rallying a roomful of canvassers to knock on doors around Las Vegas in support of Nevada’s abortion ballot measure, Question 6. The four-term Democratic congresswoman talked about her background—homeless advocate, nonprofit educator, mom of two adult children via IVF—as well as her history of miscarriages and the abortion care she needed to treat them.

Nevada has statutory protections for abortion, but it also has a Republican governor who has described himself as “pro-life.” Question 6 would enshrine those rights in the state’s constitution. “I don’t want to have to worry about it,” Lee told the audience. “I don’t want to have to worry about it for my daughter, for my grandkids, for families all across the state.”

But abortion isn’t the main topic on voters’ minds this fall—not in Lee’s sprawling Clark County district, not as her MAGA-y opponent Marty O’Donnell describes abortion rights as “satanic,” and not even in this roomful of purple “My Body. My Ballot.” T-shirts. So Lee devoted much of her time to talking about tariffs, the Iran war, $80-a-tank gas, Medicaid cuts, skyrocketing healthcare premiums, predatory housing costs, and student debt. She also drew a direct connection between affordability and reproductive autonomy. “It’s an economic issue for women and families as well.”

When it comes to how reproductive rights are paying out on the ballot this fall, that scene is 2026 in a nutshell.

Two years ago, fury over the end of Roe v. Wade put abortion at the center of the national political conversation. This year, in an election dominated by Donald Trump’s economy, war, and corruption, abortion’s importance as a political issue has seemingly receded. Yet polls show voters care about reproductive rights as much as ever—and strategists say the issue could be a key factor in determining the size of the predicted Democratic wave.

In the closing days of the midterms campaign, more and more pro-choice candidates—in Nevada and around the country—are leaning into the economic arguments. “The most consequential economic decision a family is going to make is whether to have a child,” says Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, which has been working to support ballot initiatives and Democratic candidates in key battlegrounds. “The ability to decide if and how to have a family is critical to your economic future. Voters understand that nuance.”

At the same time, abortion-rights groups are doubling down on their main theme of the past two years: the need for Democratic firewalls in Congress and the states as the Trump administration and its far-right allies threaten access.

At the Las Vegas event, Timmaraju pointed out that Trump officials have been ratcheting up their attacks on medication abortion, federal family planning, contraception and IVF, while telling their supporters that the gloves will really come off after the midterms. “Why after the midterms?” she asked. “Because they know how deeply politically unpopular these attacks are.”

The event’s special guest, Stacey Abrams, focused on the health impacts of abortion bans, including maternal deaths in her home state of Georgia. If Nevada doesn’t enshrine constitutional protections, she warned, it “runs the risk of being in the number of states where no one knows what they’re entitled to, and therefore no one knows what the future holds.”

“Voters will say, this is a deal breaker. ‘They don’t support freedom and access to reproductive health care? I can’t support them. It’s over for me.’”

That kind of messaging resonates powerfully with voters, says Molly Murphy, president of the Democratic polling firm Impact Research. “In every poll I’ve done this cycle, [abortion] is a top negative against Republicans in focus groups,” she said at a press briefing last week. “Voters will say, this is a deal breaker. ‘They don’t support freedom and access to reproductive health care? I can’t support them. It’s over for me.’”

Abortion groups are counting on those sentiments to help Democrats not just retake the House (and, if the latest polls are correct, the Senate) but also win new state trifectas by flipping key legislative seats and governorships—like Nevada’s—that Republicans now hold.

Meanwhile, four states have abortion-related measures on the ballot that could determine access for millions of women.

Here’s a look at some of the biggest reproductive rights battles of the midterms.

For a while, it seemed as if helping pro-choice Democrats like Lee win their elections and regain the House majority was the most that reproductive rights groups could reasonably hope for. Lee, first elected in the 2018 blue wave, was seen as vulnerable after Trump won her Third Congressional District in 2024 while she narrowly held onto her seat. But Lee has been helped by Trump’s plummeting popularity and by the extremism (and unseriousness) of her opponent. O’Donnell—a millionaire video-games composer endorsed by Trump—has a rabid online following (“The Marty Army,” recently busted for neo-Nazi and white nationalist comments) and far-right views about abortion and LGBTQ rights. Cook Political Report now rates the race as “Likely D.”

With the House seemingly locked up for Democrats, reproductive rights groups have intensified their focus on the Senate, whose role in picking Supreme Court justices and federal judges makes it an especially important prize. According to one policy brief, anti-abortion messaging moved support toward Democrats by as much as five points and “significantly increased” motivation among independents. But Republican candidates have been playing down (or actively scrubbing) their anti-abortion records, and pro-choice groups weren’t getting through to voters. The repro-rights side has “a believability gap to overcome,” the polling firm Impact Research warned in a July report. “Most battleground voters are not hearing about the issue of abortion, so while many express concerns about Republican policies that restrict access to abortion, they also believe these policies are unlikely to happen.”

For repro groups, the final weeks of the cycle have been all about filling that information hole. Reproductive Freedom for All has poured $23.5 million into its midterm campaign, which includes support for key Senate races in Michigan, Iowa, and Maine. Planned Parenthood Votes, a PAC affiliated with Planned Parenthood, announced a $47 million investment with targets including Maine’s Susan Collins and Michigan’s Mike Rogers. Timmaraju argues that repro rights has become a powerful closing argument: “The tipping-point issue, the thing that really helps make it plain that Republicans are too extreme to represent average voters.”

In 2024, the trifecta that Democrats fantasized about winning was in Congress and the White House. This year, they have their eyes set on the states.

Gaining complete control of state governments has proven to be one of the best defenses against Trump and the GOP, says Sarah Curmi, executive director of States Win, which supports Democrats running for state legislatures. “Trifectas are critical to protecting abortion rights and reproductive rights generally.”

Democrats could gain full control over state governments in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Minnesota, and Wisconsin by flipping a net total of just 22 legislative seats, Curmi says. Winning gubernatorial races would lead to trifectas in Nevada and Vermont.

“Being under Democratic control … would have a huge impact for those of us living in those states,” says Curmi, who hails from Michigan. “Not just for abortion access… but also voting rights, redistricting, environmental protections, LGBTQ+ equality—we could be here all day listing all the different ways that state legislatures impact our lives.”

In Pen