Missouri abortion-rights campaign fundraising total at $22M one month before election

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A campaign to restore abortion access in Missouri so far has raised close to $22 million, finance reports filed Tuesday show.

The campaign reported bringing in more than $14 million between July and the end of September alone.

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom seeks to undo the state’s near-total abortion ban and is one of nine statewide campaigns to enshrine abortion rights into state constitutions.

The campaign had close to $11 million in the bank at the beginning of the month to spend on advertising in the final weeks before the Nov. 5 election.

Donors to the Missouri campaign include model Karlie Kloss, who gave $50,000, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who last month chipped in $1 million. Other big funders include Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, Sixteen Thirty Fund and The Fairness Project, among others.

A Missouri political action committee opposing the abortion-rights amendment has raised about $212,000 and had less than $5,000 left at the beginning of October. The political action committee of the powerful anti-abortion group Missouri Right to Life so far has spent at least $637,000 opposing the amendment.

Initiative petition campaigns tend to cost a lot of money in Missouri, and abortion ballot measures in other states have been hugely expensive.

A 2022 fight over protecting abortion rights in Ohio cost a combined $70 million, with abortion-rights supporters pitching in nearly $40 million and opponents spending more than $30 million. The reproductive rights amendment passed with almost 57% of the Ohio vote.

This year, abortion rights groups have outraised opponents by a nearly 8-to-1 margin in campaigns for ballot measures across the U.S.

Summer Ballentine, The Associated Press