2026 Election Statement: Voters Affirm Reproductive Health Care is a Winning Issue
National Institute for Reproductive Health & NIRH AF President Christian LoBue released the following statement in response to the 2026 midterm election results:
“On election night, voters wholeheartedly affirmed that reproductive freedom is a winning issue as we always knew it was. Anti-abortion politicians have spent years overriding the will of voters, but on election night, voters overrode them. The resounding wins in Nevada and Virginia, along with Missouri voters’ rejection of their legislature’s attempt to repeal the reproductive health care protections they approved in 2024, underscore the people’s support for policies that protect their right to govern their own bodies through all of their reproductive experiences and rebuke attempts to target their bodily autonomy.
In an election where affordability drove many kitchen-table conversations, elected officials must heed these results and remember that reproductive freedom is an economic justice issue, too. Voters want accessible, affordable reproductive health care, including abortion care.
Today we celebrate our partners’ ingenuity and resilience, and tomorrow, we continue to advance a more just vision for the future. In Idaho, voters rejected a ballot measure to codify the right to make personal reproductive health care decisions, and attacks were directed at transgender communities across the country through dangerous surveillance policies that target vulnerable youth. We still have work to do. NIRH has already been working closely with advocates in states like Minnesota, Virginia, and Wisconsin to identify policies that can help more people access reproductive health care. We will continue working alongside our partners and legislators to translate these electoral wins into policy gains that advance abortion affordability, culturally aligned prenatal and birthing options, and people’s personal health data privacy. Together, we can ensure the people most often affected by unequal access to a spectrum of reproductive options, including Black and Indigenous people and people of color, are leading the work from city halls to state legislatures to enact policies that secure a future with true reproductive freedom.”
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