Marijuana, Abortion, and the Changing Democratic Coalition

Comparing Harris’s performance to ballot initiatives in Florida and South Dakota.

A record 10 states voted on ballot initiatives in November that would protect or expand abortion access. Seven measures passed, including those in the presidential battlegrounds of Nevada and Arizona. The 70 percent success rate is further evidence that Americans are decidedly pro-choice. But after past wins in deep-red states like Kansas and Kentucky, losing even three initiatives was a tough blow for those hoping to expand abortion access.

Two such disappointments were in South Dakota and Florida. South Dakota’s “Amendment G” earned 41.4 percent of the vote, well short of the majority required for adoption. Florida’s Amendment 4, which attracted more than $100 million in spending, did earn a solid majority at 57.2 percent—but missed the 60 percent needed to pass.

South Dakota and Florida also featured initiatives to legalize marijuana—the only pair of states to have both recreational marijuana and abortion on the ballot this year (Nebraska did pass a medical marijuana amendment). These results, when considered alongside the presidential vote, offer an excellent opportunity to explore ideological and electoral coalitions. What types of voters like legal marijuana but not abortion access? Vice-versa? How does Kamala Harris’s coalition compare? To the data we go.

South Dakota

South Dakota’s marijuana initiative—formally titled “Initiated Measure 29”—failed 44.5 percent to 55.5 percent. Despite this defeat, the legalization effort did outrun the pro-choice amendment by 6.1 points. The map below compares the county-level margins of the two ballot measures.

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As the swaths of green suggest, marijuana legalization outperformed abortion access in all but three counties (sparsely populated Harding, Custer, and Jerauld). But the varying degrees of overperformance do highlight important coalitional differences. The pro-choice side did noticeably better in the three counties that hold the state’s largest universities: Brookings County (South Dakota State University), Clay County (University of South Dakota), and Lawrence County (Black Hills State University).

While abortion access proved particularly popular with college students and university professionals, the opposite proved true on the state’s impoverished American Indian reservations. In Oglala Lakota County, which lies entirely within the Pine Ridge Reservation, legal marijuana ran more than 11 points ahead of abortion access. On the Rosebud Reservation in Todd County, the difference was 14.4 points. In Corson County, home to the Standing Rock Reservation, the abortion amendment lost by 29.4 percent and the marijuana initiative by just 9.2 percent—a whopping 20-point difference.

Though both measures were defeated, their margins look quite respectable compared to Harris’s 29-point statewide loss. The map below compares her margins to those of the pro-choice side, which outran Harris by 12 points.

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The differences between the Harris coalition and the pro-choice coalition are massive—particularly considering how much Democrats have leaned into abortion rights on the campaign trail.

A regional divide is immediately apparent. East of the Missouri River, Harris kept her margins much closer to the pro-choice tally. In the western half of the state, however, Harris ran consistently 20 points behind the amendment. Even in relatively urban Pennington County (home to Rapid City), Harris lost by 26.4 percent while the amendment failed by just 5.8 percent.

This geographical divide is many, many decades old. While the eastern half of South Dakota is excellent for farming, the western half receives much less rain and is better suited for ranching more than cultivation. These eastern agricultural counties were once a natural part of the Democratic coalition—from favorite son George McGovern through Barack Obama—but the ranching counties had no such allegiance. Many parts of Western South Dakota have voted blue just once since Roosevelt (LBJ’s landslide in ‘64).

So while some Western South Dakotans are pro-choice, most would never dream of voting for a Democrat—which produces huge differences between Harris and Amendment G. Such splits are simply not as prevalent in the eastern half of the state.

Yet again, however, the majority Native counties are home to the largest differences in margin. In Oglala Lakota, despite doing 9 points worse than Biden, Kamala Harris outran the abortion amendment by a shocking 36 points. In Todd County, she outpaced the amendment by 27.2 points. In Buffalo County—which is mostly the Crow Creek Reservation—Harris won by 27.3 points, but the pro-choice side actually lost by 1.3 points.

Such stark differences suggest that Native Americans are punching well above their ideological weight for Democrats. These are not particularly socially liberal voters, but the majority nevertheless vote for pro-choice candidates. This year’s results on the reservations suggest Democratic margins on the reservations will continue to slip as conservative Native voters realign. It’s a trade that party leaders are willing to make—but a reminder that (net positive) pro-choice politics may cost Democrats with one of their most loyal constituencies.

Florida

The Sunshine State offers an excellent demographic contrast to South Dakota (coincidentally also nicknamed the Sunshine State until 1992). Just like the abortion amendment, Florida’s legal marijuana amendment earned a solid majority, but less than the requisite 60 percent threshold. Unlike in South Dakota, though, abortion access outperformed legalization statewide.

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As the map above demonstrates, Amendments 3 and 4 had wildly different coalitions. The ruby-red Panhandle is awash in dark green—a testament to the comparative appeal of legal marijuana with non-college whites. Despite the DeSantis administration’s fervent opposition, Trump even endorsed Amendment 3, which likely boosted its margins in these red counties.

In fourteen different North Florida counties, Amendment 3 outran Amendment 4 by more than 25 points. Take Taylor—a county of 21,000 where just 15 percent of adults have a college degree. Trump won Taylor by 60 points and the abortion amendment failed by 30, but marijuana legalization won a majority.

In South Florida, however, the margins are flipped: Amendment 4 did noticeably better than Amendment 3. Miami Dade County voted against marijuana legalization by 1.4 points, but supported the pro-choice side by 17.4 points. In Broward and Palm Beach, too, abortion rights outperformed legalization by double digits. Tampa, Sarasota, Orlando, and Tallahassee, meanwhile, saw the two amendments perform more similarly.

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While the amendments each cleared 55 percent, Kamala Harris earned just 43 percent statewide. The 13-point margin of defeat was the worst Democratic performance in Florida since Michael Dukakis in 1988. To be fair to the vice president, a poor showing was probable no matter the candidate—but any dreams of a purple Florida can safely be laid to rest.

Unsurprisingly, then, Amendment 4 outran Harris by huge margins across the state: 31 points in Palm Beach, 33 in Pinellas, 35 in Sarasota, 38 in Okeechobee. The single largest delta, however, was in the Florida Keys. Monroe County, which voted for Obama twice, backed Amendment 4 by 28.5 points, but Trump by 18.3—good for a 47 point difference.

These divergences offer an important reminder that many pro-choice voters are not committed Democrats. Abortion is a winning issue for Democrats but only one ingredient in building a majority coalition.

In just one of Florida’s 67 counties did Kamala Harris run ahead of the abortion amendment: Gadsden County, just east of Tallahassee. Gadsden is also Florida’s only majority-black county. Just like the Native American vote in South Dakota, this finding suggests that Democrats are still outkicking their coverage with the 25 percent or so of black voters who are pro-life. Though Democratic margins have slipped in places like Gadsden—Trump had the best Republican performance there since 1988—a portion of conservative black voters still support liberal Democrats. The Amendment 4 results suggest Democratic margins might keep declining as these voters ideologically self-sort.

Florida’s failed amendments received widespread coverage in the weeks after Election Day, but far less attention has been paid to the disparate coalitions behind them. As the post-mortems roll in, both Democrats and Republicans would be wise to pay attention to more than just the congressional and presidential results. Initiatives and amendments can tell us quite a bit about the future of party politics.