New York, with its liberal bent and habit of electing Democrats, seems the sort of place where a statewide ballot measure to protect reproductive rights would be a shoo-in.
That may not be the case this year.
The proponents of the ballot measure, known as Proposition 1, have struggled to raise money. The lack of spending has left many voters uninformed or unaware of the ballot question. And strategists from both parties say the manner in which the proposition was written — without abortion explicitly mentioned — has given opponents a window to try to redefine and perhaps defeat it.
“The biggest thing that I’ve noticed, besides the legislative train wreck of this ballot measure’s language, is that virtually no one in the state even knows it’s there,” said John Faso, a former Republican congressman who opposes the measure.
Proposition 1 seeks to update the state’s Equal Rights Amendment, first passed in 1938, to include new protected classes that include “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes and reproductive health care and autonomy.”
The point of the measure, supporters say, is to codify certain legal protections — the right to an abortion, as well as freedom from discrimination based on disability, gender, sexuality and ethnicity, among others — into the State Constitution. That way, if politicians who opposed gay marriage or abortion ever came to power, it would be harder to restrict access to those existing rights.
But opponents of the proposal have framed it as a constitutional overreach and contend that it would affect issues like whether transgender girls can play on girls’ high school sports teams and parents’ ability to weigh in on their children’s health care choices.
The ballot measure’s fate may come down to who has more money to billboard their definition of the measure before voters go to the polls next month.
New Yorkers for Equal Rights, a committee backing Proposition 1, had indicated as recently as late August that it planned to raise $20 million to back the measure.
Filings show that the committee raised nearly $2.4 million over the past quarter, finishing with $1.6 million cash on hand, after spending hundreds of thousands on consultants.
That still would far exceed the $46,000 cash on hand reported by the proposition’s main opponent, the Coalition to Protect Kids, in its latest campaign finance disclosure.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to work to help the proposition and has committed to spending more than $1 million from her coordinated campaign committee on its behalf. The money would go to advertising and direct mail, among other efforts.
“It’s critical voters know that an abortion amendment is on the ballot in New York this year,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement. “New Yorkers deserve the freedom to control their own lives and health care decisions, including the right to abortion regardless of who’s in office, and this important investment will get that message out across the state.”
Other leading New York Democrats, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Attorney General Letitia James and several congressional candidates campaigned last week across the state to support the proposition. They and others accused Republican opponents of using fear tactics to misrepresent it and to drive conservative voters to the polls.
“It is explicit as to what Prop 1 is doing,” said Sasha Neha Ahuja, campaign director for New Yorkers for Equal Rights. “It’s protecting abortion first and foremost, and it’s closing loopholes in the State Constitution so New Yorkers can’t be discriminated against by the government. The opponents to Prop 1 are anti-abortion extremists.”
But Republican opponents have mostly avoided mentioning abortion in their messaging. Instead, they have sought to recast the proposal as an unnecessary bid to expand the rights of migrants, as well as transgender adolescents who may be seeking to receive medical treatment or to compete on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
Representative Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican who is facing a close race on Long Island, has said on social media that the proposition was a “radical referendum” that would “unfairly allow men into women’s bathrooms and sports.”
Polls commissioned by both sides suggest that Proposition 1 becomes less popular as voters hear about the broadness of the ballot language and its potential impact.
A Republican consultant, Vincent Casale, said that polls he conducted for candidates he declined to name showed a “significant shift in voter sentiment once they understand the amendment’s potential impact on women’s sports.”
“The detrimental impact of the E.R.A. can be messaged as unforeseen outcomes,” Mr. Casale wrote to clients in an August memo reviewed by The New York Times.
“Framing the argument around the impact on women’s sports provides a compelling, less polarizing way to communicate these concerns to a broad audience, including voters who would support measures they believe less discriminating or furthering abortion rights.”
Democratic consultants are similarly strategizing on how best to introduce voters to the ballot measure and recognize the potency of Republicans’ attack lines.
“If the opposition communicates in a vacuum on their terms (e.g., by stirring up fears about trans rights and the ‘migrant crisis’) without any response, Democratic candidates in these districts — as well as down-ballot Democrats — could be in real danger,” read a memo written by the Democratic polling firm the Global Strategy Group, which is working on the Proposition 1 campaign.
Their concerns are well placed. The measure’s prohibition banning discrimination based on gender identity has opponents like Mr. D’Esposito warning, without apparent evidence, that it would force the state to fund “experimental surgeries on children without parental consent.”
As for Republicans’ fears about children being allowed to compete on sports teams that align with their gender identity, supporters of the measure note that state law already allows that.
“This has long been the law in New York State, and the sky has not fallen,” said Katharine Bodde, co-director of policy for the New York Civil Liberties Union. “This is fearmongering.”
The main concern among supporters of the measure is that a deep-pocketed Republican might decide to finance a late-stage attack on it. In 2021, three proposed constitutional amendments were defeated after the cosmetics heir Ronald S. Lauder poured $3 million into the opposition’s campaign shortly before the election. The amendments would have lowered barriers to vote and made it easier for Democrats to gerrymander congressional maps.
A new political action campaign tied to Mr. Lauder was created last month, stoking Democrats’ fears of a repeat of their 2021 defeat. But a representative for Mr. Lauder told The Times that he had decided against it, adding: “He will not be having any opposition to Prop 1 going forward.”
The specter of Mr. Lauder’s involvement in the campaign to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment nonetheless raised the alarm for the measure’s supporters.
“Ron Lauder fooled New Yorkers once in 2021, but no one should be fooled again,” Ms. Ahuja said. “Lauder and his allies have backed anti-abortion efforts and killed New York ballot measures, and now we see all the trademarks of him running his playbook yet again. This is a wake-up call for anyone still on the sidelines.”
Earlier this month, Nahiyan Taufiq and Hannah Cutten, both 26, knocked on doors in support of the measure in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
Ms. Taufig and Ms. Cutten have also been volunteering at weekly phone bank sessions. They said the responses from voters on the phone and in person have been similar.
Most did not know much about the ballot measure — or even that it existed. But their interest has grown when Ms. Taufiq and Ms. Cutten have appealed to them to flip over their ballots to “close dangerous loopholes that leave us open to extreme laws from extreme politicians.”
Ms. Taufiq said that of the voters she has reached in swing districts, some have warmed up after learning about the measure — but not everyone.
“Many people shut down when they hear about abortion,” she said before knocking on another door.
Then, she said, there were the people who simply cursed at her: “There’s lots of that.”
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