While the fight for control of Congress dominated Tuesday night's headlines, voters in two states delivered their own verdicts on rights that will outlast any single term in Washington.

In Virginia, the Associated Press called all three constitutional amendments on the ballot in favor of Democratic-backed measures. Question 1, which enshrines a right to "reproductive freedom" in the state constitution, passed with roughly 62% of the vote, according to results reported by WDBJ7 and tallies from MultiState's election tracker. Question 2, protecting same-sex marriage in the state constitution, and Question 3, restoring voting rights automatically to people with felony convictions once they complete incarceration, also passed.

All three amendments cleared the General Assembly on party-line votes — the House backed the reproductive-rights measure 64-34 and the Senate 21-18 — before going to voters. Every Republican in the legislature had opposed it.

Missouri Says No, Again

More than 900 miles away, Missouri voters delivered the opposite kind of message: a rejection of an attempt by Republican lawmakers to undo abortion rights that voters themselves had approved in 2024. With nearly all precincts counted, Amendment 3 failed by roughly 55.5% to 44.5%, according to results reported by NPR and The Hill.

The measure would have repealed the 2024 amendment that made Missouri the first state to overturn a near-total abortion ban through a direct popular vote, replacing it with a new ban that allowed exceptions only for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, and rape or incest cases under 12 weeks. It also included a ban on gender-transition care for minors — already illegal under a separate state law set to expire next year — a pairing critics dismissed as "ballot candy" designed to boost turnout for the abortion provision.

VOTERS REJECT GOP ABORTION BAN MEASURE

The rematch was forced after Missouri's Republican-led legislature voted in 2025 to send a new measure back to voters just a year after losing the first fight. Opponents, organized under the banner Stop the Ban, significantly outspent the amendment's backers — who included Gov. Mike Kehoe and his wife — raising more than three times as much money, according to Springfield Daily Citizen's campaign-finance reporting. A December 2025 court ruling had already forced the state to rewrite the ballot language after finding the original summary failed to clearly disclose that the measure would repeal the 2024 amendment.

Missouri voters separately approved Amendment 6, which will require an 80% supermajority in both chambers of the legislature before lawmakers can send voters a measure trying to repeal something they already approved at the ballot box — a direct response to the legislature's repeat attempt to undo the 2024 vote.

What's Next

Virginia's new amendments take effect once the results are certified, immediately restoring voting rights to thousands of formerly incarcerated residents and locking in the reproductive-rights and marriage protections against future legislative majorities. In Missouri, the 2024 abortion-rights amendment remains the law of the land — for now — though the state's new supermajority requirement means any third attempt to unwind it will face a far steeper climb in the legislature.