As more than 50 supporters of the Missouri abortion amendment gathered at a local union headquarters in Kansas City on Saturday morning, organizers went over the dos and don’ts of door-to-door campaigning while the crowd munched on donuts and sipped coffee.

Do speak to every registered voter in each home. Do ask if they have a plan to vote.

But don’t spend time arguing with the “anti’s,” as the organizers put it. There’s not enough time.

The movement to pass Amendment 3, a state constitutional amendment that would overturn Missouri’s abortion ban, is concentrating on get-out-the-vote efforts in the final dash of the race, seeking to ensure abortion rights supporters turn up at the polls. A week before Election Day, amendment backers appear confident that public opinion is on their side and that they will prevail – if supporters show up.

Kansas City – and other metro areas – are potentially key on their path to victory. The city, with more than 223,000 registered voters in Jackson County alone, represents a trove of liberal Democratic voters highly likely to support restoring abortion access.

At the same time, voter turnout in the portion of Kansas City within Jackson County lagged statewide turnout in the last presidential general election. Missouri hit 70% turnout in the 2020 election, but that part of Kansas City only reached 60.5%.

“We know the majority of Americans support abortion access and the majority of Missourians support abortion access. So now we’re down to the point where we need to help people make a voting plan,” Selina Sandoval, associate medical director for Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said before canvassing on Saturday.

Passage of Amendment 3 would prove a turning point in Missouri history. The Missouri General Assembly spent decades enacting restrictions on abortion, culminating in a ban that took effect moments after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to abortion in 2022. Missouri would become the first state where voters have overturned an abortion ban since the fall of Roe v. Wade if voters approve the amendment.

The amendment would protect the right to reproductive freedom, including abortion, within the Missouri Constitution. The state’s power to restrict abortion before fetal viability would be severely constrained but lawmakers could ban post-viability abortions.

Supporters have cast Amendment 3 as ensuring decisions surrounding abortion are made by doctors and patients, an argument rooted in appeals to freedom that have proved successful in Kansas and other states where abortion rights have been on the ballot. Critics warn the amendment will lead to unregulated abortions throughout all nine months of pregnancy, claims undercut by previous court opinions.

Supporters have held a financial advantage throughout election season. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the main group backing the measure, has raised more than $25,000,000. Groups opposing the amendment have lagged behind.

One of the groups, Vote No on 3, had raised roughly $456,000 by the end of September. Since then, the group has received several high-dollar donations, including $157,000 from D. John Sauer, a former solicitor general of Missouri who serves on former President Donald Trump’s legal team.

Missouri Stands with Women, another group opposing the effort, had raised nearly $212,000 through the end of September.

Public polling suggests voters are on track to approve the measure. A mid-September survey of likely voters by Emerson College Polling and The Hill found 58% of respondents support Amendment 3, compared to 30% who oppose. At that time, 12% were undecided.

The results, which were also roughly reflected in an August survey by Saint Louis University and YouGov, underscore how abortion rights supporters appear to enjoy a clear lead in public support – and the uphill battle abortion opponents face.

If the Emerson poll was broadly accurate when it was taken, then amendment opponents this fall needed to not only win over the vast majority of undecided voters, but also persuade some voters to abandon their support of the proposal. Meanwhile, amendment supporters just needed to hold on to and turn out their supporters.

Saturday’s canvassing operation was aimed at exactly that.

Dozens of volunteers, including doctors and other health care professionals, joined the door-knocking event in Kansas City. Similar events took place in St. Louis and Columbia, home of the University of Missouri’s flagship campus. It’s all part of an overall effort to knock on at least 40,000 doors across Missouri, including 10,000 doors in Kansas City.

In Kansas City, amendment supporters gathered at Operating Engineers Local 101 before spreading out across the city to promote Amendment 3 as well as Proposition A, which would gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and provide guaranteed sick leave.

Lucas Rodriguez, an organizer with Yes on 3, told the volunteers he hoped they could each knock on 40 doors on Saturday, with the goal of having at least eight conversations with voters. If they encountered opponents, Rodriguez urged them not to spend time arguing.

“Move on to the next house. We don’t have time for that at this point,” Rodriguez said. “We have to identify our supporters and make sure they have a plan to vote.”

‘Voters are voting’

While canvassing can inspire thoughts of meaningful exchanges between voters, the reality is often much more mundane. The Star followed a handful of supporters, including Sandoval, as they went door to door around midday in the Columbus Square Park neighborhood east of the River Market – with little luck.

Sandoval, taking the lead, knocked on door after door with no answer. At each house they waited a full minute, as coached by organizers, before moving on. They hung a flier around each door handle as they left.

One man who did come to the door said he had already voted in favor of Amendment 3. He took a few stickers and the group thanked him for voting.

The area’s precincts voted heavily Democratic in the 2022 general election, according to results from the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners. Trudy Busch Valentine, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate that year, collectively won 81% of the vote in seven precincts that include the Columbus Square Park neighborhood and nearby areas of the riverfront.

As the group moved house to house and apartment to apartment, Holy Rosary Catholic Church loomed nearby. Statues of Mary dotted yards. In one house, a lifesize Mary and Joseph stood inside a fenced-in porch, perhaps for use in a Nativity scene (no one answered the door).

The Catholic Church, which opposes abortion, has been outspoken against Amendment 3. Missouri’s Catholic bishops have released a statement saying the amendment “would represent a tragic step backward in our work to protect all human life at all stages.”

Sam Lee, a longtime anti-abortion activist and president of Missouri Stands With Women, said churches across the state, both Catholic and Protestant, have urged congregants to vote no in recent weeks. He characterized the opposition’s current effort as direct outreach to voters.

“Voters are voting each day, large numbers at the polls. So we’re just, I’m not going to go into specifics, but just direct communication with voters at all sorts of different levels,” Lee said.

“There’s advertising, there’s fliers, there’s direct voter contact, and that’s, you know, there’s a sense of urgency, not just because the election is in days, but because the election is actually now.”

In the final weeks of the race, Amendment 3 opponents have focused in large measure on what they say is the danger that the measure would open the door to minors obtaining gender transition surgeries, potentially without parental consent. One TV ad from Freedom Principle MO - Missouri First PAC airing on cable TV warns viewers that “your child could be coerced into life-altering treatments or surgeries.”

Legal and medical experts have disputed the idea that Amendment 3 will affect gender transition surgeries for minors.

The amendment does not mention transgender treatments or gender-affirming care. It lays out a “right to make and carry out decisions about all matters of reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care and respectful birthing conditions.”

But gender transition surgeries for individuals under 18 are broadly unpopular in Missouri. An August 2023 Saint Louis University/YouGov poll of likely Missouri voters found just 14% support for minors receiving gender-affirming surgery.

“A big, big, big discussion about that, and that’s been a – probably a significant part of the appeal to those who would be in the middle,” Lee said.

Focus on voter turnout

While Amendment 3 backers have swatted down attempts to link the measure to gender surgeries, they haven’t made combating the claim a central component of their campaign.

Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Missouri who has long followed the state’s politics, said that probably isn’t a mistake. He questioned how widely the claims have circulated and suggested they have likely reached more opponents than potential supporters.

“I think that the Yes on 3 campaign has probably been correct to focus on questions of personal privacy and personal freedom. I think that’s probably the strongest argument that they bring and one that probably is the most easily understood by voters,” Squire said.

The focus by amendment supporters on turning out voters makes sense, Squire said. Most voters by this point have made up their mind and now it’s a question of whether they’ll show up to cast a ballot.

“And so I think trying to mobilize the people that are supporting you, particularly if your calculation is that you’re on the winning side, is probably the best use of time and resources,” Squire said.

Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said an important part of Saturday’s canvassing was ensuring that voters don’t just hear from activists and volunteers, but also from physicians whose care is affected by the abortion ban.

A Kansas doctor in September complained publicly that a Missouri pharmacy initially denied medication to a patient who miscarried, citing the state’s abortion ban (the pharmacy later reversed course). More than 800 medical professionals in Missouri have also signed an open letter urging support for Amendment 3.

“We know from the polling that Missourians are with us,” Wales said. “So what we need to do now is make sure they get out, they actually submit their ballots and make sure that their voices are heard.”

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