The vote swing that succeeded in the 2022 Kansas Abortion Rights referendum was massive and practically universal across the entire state, even in counties where the “No” vote failed.
I compared the November 2018 governor race won by Democrat Lauri Kelly with the 2022 Primary election results with the Abortion Rights constitutional recission. In short, only four counties in the state showed a vote percentage lesser than the percentage Governor Kelly received in her winning campaign. Obversely, the swing to the “No” position was massive with multiple counties showing a relative swing of 13-18 percentage points compared to the percentage earned by Governor Kelly in her win.
The 2018 Governor Race and the 2022 Primary are comparable ( turnout will be nearly equal), and the fact Democrat Governor Kelly won the race makes the “No” over-achievment even more striking.
Not only did the “No” vote perform better on a relative scale, but the absolute number of “No” votes exceeded the total votes for Governor Kelly in almost all counties.
The Republican’s widespread use of computer aided GIS-driven jerrymandering often implements a narrow “lean” in its cherry-picked districts, as this allows them to spread the vote over a greater number of districts. I’ve reviewed many districts (in other states) created with a smaller than 5% lean, which would be dwarfed with a Kansas sized “swing”. The Kansas results show a finely calculated narrow lean could end disastrously in the event of a widespread and massive voter revolt.
One cautionary note, the county encompassing the urban Kansas City, Kansas (Wyandotte) had a negative relative performance and a lagging turnout number in 2022 compared to 2018.
Maps created in QGIS 3.24 from my dataset and a County shapefile.
Data sources: NY TImes 2022 and 2018 Election results.