Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew speaks to party supporters in Winnipeg on Tuesday night, after his party secured a majority in the provincial election. (James Turner/CBC)
Manitoba’s New Democratic Party rode to a resounding victory Tuesday night on the back of long-simmering frustration and anger with the province’s Progressive Conservatives — something the governing party couldn’t shake, even with a new face at the helm.
The NDP victory also signalled that despite all the noise of the campaign — from escalating PC attack ads in its waning days to a focus on divisive issues, including a vague call for parental rights in schools and a refusal to search a landfill for the remains of two First Nations homicide victims — it was the issues that mattered to voters.
And the winning party’s choice of health care as the issue to focus on seems to have been a smart one.
That topic made its way into nearly all the NDP’s announcements on the campaign trail, and into premier-designate Wab Kinew’s victory speech on Tuesday night — where front-line workers were the very first people he addressed.
“To the people in health care, to the people working in the bedside today, to the people thinking of pursuing a career, to health-care workers across the country and other provinces around the world, I have a simple message to you. We need you,” Kinew said in a speech to a room filled with ecstatic supporters, as he was surrounded on stage by his wife, Dr. Lisa Monkman, and their children.
Though Kinew was relatively careful in discussing his identity as an Anishinaabe man on the campaign trail, and in addressing Indigenous issues at all, he also used the historic night to connect with young Indigenous people in the audience — perhaps suggesting a shift in approach from Manitoba’s first First Nations premier.
“I want to speak to the young neechies out there,” he said to loud cheers from the bursting crowd, who were packed shoulder-to-shoulder for most of the night.
Kinew encourages Indigenous youth seeking change to take 1st step
Wab Kinew is reaching out to Indigenous youth, telling them to stop making excuses and start believing in themselves. Speaking from personal experience, he says they have to “want it,” and if they do, the Manitoba NDP government will be there to provide assistance – if they take the first step.
“I was given a second chance in life, and I would like to think that I’ve made good on that opportunity. And you can do the same — here’s how. My life became immeasurably better when I stopped making excuses and I started looking for a reason.
“And I found that reason in our family. I found that reason in our community. And I found that reason in our province and country.”
Discontent with government
As of late Tuesday night, Kinew’s NDP had snagged at least 30 of 57 seats — a double-digit gain from the 18 they clinched in 2019 and a clear victory for the party.
The win comes after recent polling suggested the NDP had taken the lead in the race over the Progressive Conservatives, who had been in power since 2016 and won a second straight majority government in 2019.
Manitoba NDP supporters cheer upon hearing early in the night the party was elected or leading in more than 29 ridings — the number required to form a majority government — at the party’s election headquarters at the Fort Garry Hotel in downtown Winnipeg on Tuesday. (James Turner/CBC)
But the governing party was unable to rise above a drop in opinion polls it faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as case numbers spiked during the second and third waves and Manitoba sent dozens of intensive care patients to other provinces because its own hospitals were overwhelmed.
Heather Stefanson later replaced controversial former premier Brian Pallister as PC leader in a hotly contested leadership race in October 2021.
But even two years of a new face ended up falling short of being able to convince many Manitobans the party had changed enough to overcome that sense of discontent.
The Manitoba NDP had been the Official Opposition since being ousted by the Progressive Conservatives in a crushing 2016 defeat that followed a caucus revolt against former leader Greg Selinger — someone the PCs continually tried to link Kinew to this year, even before the campaign officially began.
Health care front of mind — not attacks
The results of Manitoba’s election send a message that Kinew’s vision of revamping the province’s health-care system — including the NDP’s crown jewel promise to reopen three emergency rooms that were closed under the PC government — may have resonated with voters more than anything else.
The win also suggests the NDP leader was also able to convince Manitobans he would be a fiscally responsible premier on issues ranging from fighting homelessness to tackling the high cost of living, despite his opponents’ suggestions to the contrary.
The NDP victory is also likely to signal a reversal of the PC government’s decision not to help fund a search of the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, homicide victims whose remains police believe were taken to the Winnipeg-area site.
That landfill search — along with a pledge to bolster parental rights in schools, which some critics feared would parallel changes in other regions that require schools to get parental consent to use the chosen names and pronouns of kids under 16 — were among the divisive topics that characterized the final stretch of the PC campaign.
Kinew delivers his victory speech and wishes his mother, Kathi Avery Kinew, a happy birthday, after winning the election on Tuesday night. (David Lipnowski/The Canadian Press)
Meanwhile, Kinew was the face of a largely positive campaign despite escalating attack ads by the Progressive Conservatives aimed at criminal charges in his past — charges that either resulted in stays or pardons, and which the NDP leader has said are part of what motivated him to get into politics.
“It seemed to reek of desperation,” said Paul Thomas, professor emeritus in political studies at the University of Manitoba, adding that while Stefanson has said she doesn’t micromanage the party’s advertising, what the campaign puts out is ultimately her responsibility.
Manitoba Progressive Conservative Leader Heather Stefanson gives her concession speech following her party’s loss in the Manitoba election on Tuesday. Stefanson said she would step down as party leader after the NDP won a majority government. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)
Stefanson, who said she would be resigning as party leader after conceding Tuesday night, felt the PCs’ failure in her home riding of Tuxedo — which she won handily in 2019 and which still hadn’t been called between her or her NDP opponent as of Wednesday morning.
Kelly Saunders, an associate political science professor at Brandon University, said the PCs gambled and lost on several fronts: first by underestimating how important health care would be to voters and second by focusing on “nasty divisive politics.”
Progressive Conservative supporters listen as Stefanson gives her concession speech on Tuesday. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)
The party will have to put some serious thought into where it goes from here, she said.
“Do they try to get back to their more Progressive Conservative roots?” said Saunders.
“Or do they continue, you know, shifting more towards the right? Which is what we saw in the last few weeks.”
Indigeneity highlighted
For his part, Kinew rarely acknowledged the fact that he’s Indigenous on the campaign trail — preferring instead to tell reporters he didn’t want to be the First Nations premier of Manitoba, but “the best premier of Manitoba.”
The one exception was an August speech at Winnipeg’s Canadian Mennonite University, where he characterized his primary opponents’ attempts to make his past run-ins with the law a campaign issue as being at least in part motivated by racism, or “the fact that I’m somebody who sometimes wears my hair in a braid.”
Indigenous issues also appeared to be largely sidelined by the NDP during the election campaign, in spite — or perhaps because — of the fact its leader was poised to become Manitoba’s first First Nations premier.
Premier-designate Wab Kinew delivers his victory speech surrounded by family after winning Manitoba’s provincial election in Winnipeg on Tuesday night. (David Lipnowski/The Canadian Press)
But Kinew’s use of his victory speech to directly address Indigenous youth — and signing it off by telling the audience “thank you and miigwech” — signaled something new from the premier-designate, who Saunders said had to navigate discussing his Indigeneity carefully during a campaign where his opponents tried to weaponize it.
“Whereas tonight, you know, he could maybe be a little bit more free … and a little bit more himself,” she said.
“It was kind of nice for him to be able to feel comfortable enough, maybe, to be able to share that experience in a way that he didn’t feel he was able to during the campaign, where he had to be more guarded.”
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona voters have approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access up to fetal viability, typically after 21 weeks — a major win for advocates of the measure in the presidential battleground state who have been seeking to expand access beyond the current 15-week limit.
Arizona was one of nine states with abortion on the ballot. Democrats have centered abortion rights in their campaigns since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Abortion-rights supporters prevailed in all seven abortion ballot questions in 2022 and 2023, including in conservative-leaning states.
Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition leading the state campaign, gathered well over the 383,923 signatures required to put it on the ballot, and the secretary of state’s office verified that enough were valid. The coalition far outpaced the opposition campaign, It Goes Too Far, in fundraising. The opposing campaign argued the measure was too far-reaching and cited its own polling in saying a majority of Arizonans support the 15-week limit. The measure allows post-viability abortions if they are necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the mother.
Access to abortion has been a cloudy issue in Arizona. In April, the state Supreme Court cleared the way for the enforcement of a long-dormant 1864 law banning nearly all abortions. The state Legislature swiftly repealed it.
Voters in Arizona are divided on abortion. Maddy Pennell, a junior at Arizona State University, said the possibility of a near-total abortion ban made her “depressed” and strengthened her desire to vote for the abortion ballot measure.
“I feel very strongly about having access to abortion,” she said.
Kyle Lee, an independent Arizona voter, does not support the abortion ballot measure.
“All abortion is pretty much, in my opinion, murder from beginning to end,” Lee said.
The Civil War-era ban also shaped the contours of tight legislative races. State Sen. Shawnna Bolick and state Rep. Matt Gress are among the handful of vulnerable Republican incumbents in competitive districts who crossed party lines to give the repeal vote the final push — a vote that will be tested as both parties vie for control of the narrowly GOP-held state Legislature.
Both of the Phoenix-area lawmakers were rebuked by some of their Republican colleagues for siding with Democrats. Gress made a motion on the House floor to initiate the repeal of the 1864 law. Bolick, explaining her repeal vote to her Senate colleagues, gave a 20-minute floor speech describing her three difficult pregnancies.
While Gress was first elected to his seat in 2022, Bolick is facing voters for the first time. She was appointed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to fill a seat vacancy in 2023. She has not emphasized her role in the repeal vote as she has campaigned, instead playing up traditional conservative issues — one of her signs reads “Bolick Backs the Blue.”
Voters rejected a measure to eliminate retention elections for state Superior Court judges and Supreme Court justices.
The measure was put on the ballot by Republican legislators hoping to protect two conservative justices up for a routine retention vote who favored allowing the Civil War-era ban to be enforced — Shawnna Bolick’s husband, Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, and Justice Kathryn Hackett King. Since the measure did not pass, both are still vulnerable to voter ouster, though those races hadn’t been decided by early Wednesday morning.
Under the existing system, voters decide every four to six years whether judges and justices should remain on the bench. The proposed measure would have allowed the judges and justices to stay on the bench without a popular vote unless one is triggered by felony convictions, crimes involving fraud and dishonesty, personal bankruptcy or mortgage foreclosure.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska voters supported a measure Tuesday that enshrines the state’s current ban on abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy in the state constitution, and they rejected a competing measure that sought to expand abortion rights. Nebraska was the first state to have competing abortion amendments on the same ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the nationwide right to abortion and allowing states to decide for themselves. The dueling measures were among a record number of petition-initiated measures on Nebraska’s ballot Tuesday.
What were the competing abortion measures?
A majority of voters supported a measure enshrining the state’s current ban on abortion after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in the state constitution. The measure will also allow for further restrictions. Last year, the Legislature passed the 12-week ban, which includes exceptions for cases of rape and incest and to protect the life of the pregnant woman.
Voters rejected the other abortion measure. If they had passed it by a larger number of “for” votes than the 12-week measure, it would have amended the constitution to guarantee the right to have an abortion until viability — the standard under Roe that is the point at which a fetus might survive outside the womb. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.
Abortion was on the ballot in several other states, as well. Coming into the election, voters in all seven states that had decided on abortion-related ballot measures since the reversal of Roe had favored abortion rights, including in some conservative states.
Who is behind the Nebraska abortion measures?
The 12-week ban measure was bankrolled by some of Nebraska’s wealthiest people, including Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, who previously served as governor and donated more than $1.1 million. His mother, Marlene Ricketts, gave $4 million to the cause. Members of the Peed family, which owns publishing company Sandhills Global, also gave $1 million.
The effort was organized under the name Protect Women and Children and was heavily backed by religious organizations, including the Nebraska Catholic Conference, a lobbying group that has organized rallies, phone banks and community townhalls to drum up support for the measure.
The effort to enshrine viability as the standard was called Protect Our Rights Nebraska and had the backing of several medical, advocacy and social justice groups. Planned Parenthood donated nearly $1 million to the cause, with the American Civil Liberties Union, I Be Black Girl, Nebraska Appleseed and the Women’s Fund of Omaha also contributing significantly to the roughly $3.7 million raised by Protect Our Rights.
What other initiatives were on Nebraska’s ballot?
Nebraska voters approved two measures Tuesday that will create a system for the use and manufacture of medical marijuana, if the measures survive an ongoing legal challenge.
The measures legalize the possession and use of medical marijuana, and allow for the manufacture, distribution and delivery of the drug. One would let patients and caregivers possess up to 5 ounces (142 grams) of marijuana if recommended by a doctor. The other would create the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission, which would oversee the private groups that would manufacture and dispense the drug.
Those initiatives were challenged over allegations that the petition campaign that put them on the ballot broke election rules. Nebraska’s attorney general said supporters of the measures may have submitted several thousand invalid signatures, and one man has been charged in connection with 164 allegedly fraudulent signatures. That means a judge could still invalidate the measures.
Voters also opted Tuesday to repeal a new conservative-backed law that allocates millions of dollars in taxpayer money to fund private school tuition.
Finally, they approved a measure that will require all Nebraska employers to provide at least 40 hours of paid sick leave to their employees.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in Missouri cleared the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in one of seven victories for abortion rights advocates, while Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The results include firsts for the abortion landscape, which underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
They also came in the same election that Republican Donald Trump won the presidency. Among his inconsistent positions on abortion has been an insistence that it’s an issue best left to the states. Still, the president can have a major impact on abortion policy through executive action.
In the meantime, Missouri is positioned to be the first state where a vote will undo a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with an amendment that would allow lawmakers to restrict abortions only past the point of a fetus’ viability — usually considered after 21 weeks, although there’s no exact defined time frame.
But the ban, and other restrictive laws, are not automatically repealed. Advocates now have to ask courts to overturn laws to square with the new amendment.
“Today, Missourians made history and sent a clear message: decisions around pregnancy, including abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care are personal and private and should be left up to patients and their families, not politicians,” Rachel Sweet, campaign manager of Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said in a statement.
Roughly half of Missouri’s voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 2,200 of the state’s voters. But only about 1 in 10 said abortion should be illegal in all cases; nearly 4 in 10 said abortion should be illegal in most cases.
Bans remain in place in three states after votes
Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota became the first states since Roe was overturned where abortion opponents prevailed on a ballot measure. Most voters supported the Florida measure, but it fell short of the required 60% to pass constitutional amendments in the state. Most states require a simple majority.
The result was a political win for Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican with a national profile, who had steered state GOP funds to the cause. His administration has weighed in, too, with a campaign against the measure, investigators questioning people who signed petitions to add it to the ballot and threats to TV stations that aired one commercial supporting it.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the national anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, said in a statement that the result is “a momentous victory for life in Florida and for our entire country,” praising DeSantis for leading the charge against the measure.
The defeat makes permanent a shift in the Southern abortion landscape that began when the state’s six-week ban took effect in May. That removed Florida as a destination for abortion for many women from nearby states with deeper bans and also led to far more women from the state traveling to obtain abortion. The nearest states with looser restrictions are North Carolina and Virginia — hundreds of miles away.
“The reality is because of Florida’s constitution a minority of Florida voters have decided Amendment 4 will not be adopted,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for the Yes on 4 Campaign said while wiping away tears. “The reality is a majority of Floridians just voted to end Florida’s abortion ban.”
In South Dakota, another state with a ban on abortion throughout pregnancy with some exceptions, the defeat of an abortion measure was more decisive. It would have allowed some regulations related to the health of the woman after 12 weeks. Because of that wrinkle, most national abortion-rights groups did not support it.
Voters in Nebraska adopted a measure that allows more abortion restrictions and enshrines the state’s current 12-week ban and rejected a competing measure that would have ensured abortion rights.
Other states guaranteed abortion rights
Arizona’s amendment will mean replacing the current law that bans abortion after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The new measure ensures abortion access until viability. A ballot measure there gained momentum after a state Supreme Court ruling in April found that the state could enforce a strict abortion ban adopted in 1864. Some GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats to repeal the law before it could be enforced.
In Maryland, the abortion rights amendment is a legal change that won’t make an immediate difference to abortion access in a state that already allows it.
It’s a similar situation in Montana, where abortion is already legal until viability.
The Colorado measure exceeded the 55% of support required to pass. Besides enshrining access, it also undoes an earlier amendment that barred using state and local government funding for abortion, opening the possibility of state Medicaid and government employee insurance plans covering care.
A New York equal rights law that abortion rights group say will bolster abortion rights also passed. It doesn’t contain the word “abortion” but rather bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” Sasha Ahuja, campaign director of New Yorkers for Equal Rights, called the result “a monumental victory for all New Yorkers” and a vote against opponents who she says used misleading parental rights and anti-trans messages to thwart the measure.
The results end a win streak for abortion-rights advocates
Until Tuesday, abortion rights advocates had prevailed on all seven measures that have appeared on statewide ballots since the fall of Roe.
The abortion rights campaigns have a big fundraising advantage this year. Their opponents’ efforts are focused on portraying the amendments as too extreme rather than abortion as immoral.
Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Four more bar abortion in most cases after about six weeks of pregnancy — before women often realize they’re pregnant. Despite the bans, the number of monthly abortions in the U.S. has risen slightly, because of the growing use of abortion pills and organized efforts to help women travel for abortion. Still, advocates say the bans have reduced access, especially for lower-income and minority residents of the states with bans.
The issue is resonating with voters. About one-fourth said abortion policy was the single most important factor for their vote, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide. Close to half said it was an important factor, but not the most important. Just over 1 in 10 said it was a minor factor.
The outcomes of ballot initiatives that sought to overturn strict abortion bans in Florida and Missouri were very important to a majority of voters in the states. More than half of Florida voters identified the result of the amendment as very important, while roughly 6 in 10 of Missouri’s voters said the same, the survey found.
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Associated Press reporters Hannah Fingerhut and Amanda Seitz contributed to this article.
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This article has been corrected to reflect in the ‘other states’ section that Montana, not Missouri, currently allows abortion until viability.
