Kansans for Constitutional Freedom

1. 1

   59% No. On August 2, 2022, 557,837 Kansas voters rejected the amendment that would have removed abortion rights from the state constitution.

2. 2

   942,851 votes, double the 2018 primary, in a vote scheduled for August, when few people vote and most of them are party loyalists.

3. 3

   The campaign talked about freedom and medical decisions without government interference, and treated unaffiliated voters and moderate Republicans like any other voter.

4. 4

   Kansans for Constitutional Freedom supplied the message, literature and walk lists; local partners carried them to young people, Latinos and Republican voters.

5. 5

   After Dobbs, canvassing volunteers went from about 50 to 500 a week, and the campaign raised $100,000 in a single day.

Copy summary

If you're new to this, start with the fundamentals, from the vote goal to what the research says. Read the fundamentals

In 2021 the legislature's anti-abortion majority put the Value Them Both amendment on the August 2022 primary ballot. In July a poll had Yes at 47% and No at 43%. Six weeks after Roe fell, about half of registered voters cast a ballot, and No won by 18 points.

59.16%

No: 557,837 votes to 385,014, official secretary of state totalsofficial Source

942,851

votes on the amendment, more than double the 2018 primary (457,598)official Source

70%

of new registrants after Dobbs were women, according to TargetSmartstudy Source

50 → 500

canvassing volunteers a week, before and after Dobbscampaign figure Source

From the court ruling to the vote

1. 2019In Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt, the Kansas Supreme Court rules 6-1 that the state constitution protects the right to end a pregnancy.
2. Feb 7, 2020The first version of the amendment fails in the Kansas House: 80 votes to 43, four short of the required two-thirds.
3. Jan 2021The amendment passes the House (86 to 38) and the Senate (28 to 11) and is set for the August 2, 2022 primary. The No coalition forms during 2021.
4. May 2, 2022The draft Dobbs opinion leaks, signaling the end of Roe v. Wade.
5. Jun 24, 2022Dobbs overturns Roe. KCF raises $100,000 that day, against $30,000 for all of June until then; voter registrations surge.
6. Jul 12, 2022Registration deadline. Through KSVotes.org alone, nearly 12,000 people registered in 19 days, three times the same period in 2020.
7. Jul 17–18, 2022co/efficient poll of 1,557 likely voters: 47% Yes, 43% No, 10% undecided.
8. Aug 1, 2022Anonymous texts claim a Yes vote protects women's health. Once alerted, Twilio halts the sends; the firm that hired it had been paid by Do Right PAC, founded by former congressman Tim Huelskamp. The firm said it did not consult on the messages' content.
9. Aug 2, 2022No wins with 59.16%, per the official totals certified in early September. In 103 of 105 counties, its margin beat Governor Laura Kelly's in her November reelection.
10. Aug 4, 2026With 61.4% voting No, Kansans reject an amendment to elect state Supreme Court justices; opponents called it an attempt to change the result of 2022.

Three layers

KCF didn't do everything itself: it built the core and let partners and volunteers carry the same message to audiences it couldn't reach.

• The coreKCF: campaign management, communications, data with voter scores, paid media made with GMMB and its own canvassing in five counties.
• The coalitionPlanned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, ACLU of Kansas, Trust Women Foundation, Mainstream Coalition, Women for Kansas, Loud Light and others, each with its own audience and using KCF's materials and lists.
• The spontaneous networkFirst-time volunteers, homemade signs, rallies called by people who had never organized anything and clergy who preached about the vote.

What was specific to Kansas in 2022 and may be missing elsewhere.

Platforms

Doors, phones and texts

The core of direct contact: more than 76,000 doors, 930,000 calls and 150,000 texts, according to the case study by NGP VAN, the software vendor, using lists segmented by voter scores.

Paid TV

More than $6 million on TV, according to the spokesperson. The first ad talked about individual rights without saying abortion; later ones featured a doctor, a pastor, a Catholic grandmother and a mother.

Direct mail and digital ads

More than $463,000 on mail and $512,000 on digital, per a July ethics commission report. The sources do not describe the mailers; on TV, most ads said abortion, but not all.

Instagram and direct messages

Vote Neigh analyzed who interacted with its accounts and used comments and DMs to invite young people to rallies and the Ponies to the Polls weekend.

KSVotes.org

An independent voter registration site, not an official state service. On June 24, 2022, the day of Dobbs, it logged more registrations than on any non-deadline day in four years.

Yard signs, rallies and churches

Voters made their own signs, supportive clergy preached about the vote and a hand-lettered poster on an overpass warned that birth control was next.

Local conditions

• A Republican state: Trump beat Biden 56.2% to 41.6% in 2020. Registered voters were 44% Republican, 26% Democratic and 29% unaffiliated.
• The legislature put the measure on the August primary ballot, when 20% to 25% of voters usually turn out; the secretary of state predicted 36%.
• Closed primaries: unaffiliated voters only got the amendment question, and they don't usually vote in August.
• In 2019 the Kansas Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that the state constitution protects personal autonomy, including the decision to end a pregnancy. The amendment aimed to overturn that.
• Dobbs came down on June 24, 2022, six weeks before the vote; neighboring Missouri and Oklahoma already had bans.
• The amendment's wording was confusing, and the Yes side insisted it was not a ban.
• Kansas law did not require texts about ballot questions to say who paid for them and, according to the ethics commission, allowed misleading election advertising.

The No campaign started from arithmetic: no single bloc could win the vote alone. It had to add Democrats, unaffiliated voters and moderate Republicans with a message none of them felt was partisan, and explain a confusing ballot again and again.

Three fronts

Freedom without a party label

The message was personal autonomy and health decisions free from government interference, grounded in the 2019 ruling. The same for every audience: ads about rights that didn't say abortion, and others that did, voiced by trusted messengers.

Do the electoral math

Turnout modeled cautiously, unaffiliated voters treated like any other, moderate Republicans and Democrats on the same footing. Lists segmented by scores in the voter file.

A coalition with a shared kit

A core that supplied message, literature, walk lists and field infrastructure; partners that worked with their own audiences, including young people and Latinos in the southwest.

The campaign cycle

The cycle reconstructed from interviews and published figures. Where a source doesn't describe a step, the text flags it as the playbook's suggestion.

1. Research Focus groups and surveys to find the frame that worked with conservatives, independents and progressives: constitutional rights and freedoms.
2. Model turnout Plan for a small, conservative primary, not for polls that assumed high turnout. Hence the need to reach unaffiliated voters and Republicans.
3. Fix the message One message, each person's right to make decisions about their body and health without the government in the way, told in different formats.
4. Equip the coalition Literature, walk lists and field infrastructure for each partner, which organized in its own territory. In the southwest, the statewide script gave way to more open conversations.
5. Talk Doors, phones and texts for the voter universes; casual conversations in the southwest; rallies and social media for young people.
6. Explain the ballot Paid media, earned media, direct contact and mail to say what a Yes or a No vote means, including an ad just about the amendment's wording.
7. Absorb the wave When Dobbs came down, channel the anger into canvassing shifts, donations and voter registration, keeping the same strategy.
8. Get out the vote In the final stretch, remind people of the day, the place and what a No vote means. The playbook's suggestion: prepare a response to last-minute disinformation in advance, since it arrived on August 1.

And again.

This playbook draws on what the campaign's leadership and coalition partners said and wrote: above all the interviews spokesperson Ashley All and campaign manager Rachel Sweet gave during and after the vote, checked against official results and Kansas reporting.

• Rachel Sweet

  Campaign manager, Kansans for Constitutional Freedom (KCF)

  Ran the No campaign, decided to talk to unaffiliated voters like any other voter and wrote about the win a year later.

  Sources

• Ashley All

  Communications director and spokesperson, KCF

  Anchored the message in personal autonomy, explained the strategy in interviews and went on to work on winning reproductive rights campaigns in Kentucky, Montana, Michigan and Ohio.

  Sources

• Loud Light and Vote Neigh

  Topeka youth voting group; Davis Hammet (president), Melissa Stiehler (advocacy) and Rija Nazir (Vote Neigh)

  Ran Vote Neigh, a hot-pink, western-themed youth campaign with the Ponies to the Polls weekend; Hammet publicly called out the misleading texts on the eve of the vote.

  Sources

• New Frontier Project

  Loud Light project in southwest Kansas; Alejandro Rangel-Lopez

  Swapped KCF's statewide script, which didn't fit the southwest, for casual conversations that began by asking what the voter thought.

  Sources

• Coalition partners

  Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, ACLU of Kansas, Trust Women Foundation, Mainstream Coalition, Women for Kansas

  Each spoke to its own audience with the shared message, from a group fighting extremism inside the Republican Party to a nonpartisan public-education group.

  Sources

• Local volunteers

  First-time organizers in conservative counties

  In Crawford County, a woman and her friends knocked on 1,600 doors in the final weeks and No won the county by 1,110 votes; in Topeka, Kurstin Gaudet helped lead a march of more than 500 people.

  Sources

• GMMB

  KCF's political ad agency

  Made the TV ads featuring Kansans: a doctor, a pastor, a Catholic grandmother and a mother who had a lifesaving abortion.

  Sources

What the campaign's leaders and organizers said about the decisions they made. Paraphrased unless otherwise noted.

• “Voters do not see abortion as a partisan issue.” So the campaign talked with people across the political spectrum.

  Ashley All, KCF spokesperson, Rolling Stone, interview on the lessons of Kansas, 2022

• The team modeled a small, conservative primary electorate and was very cautious; she suspects pollsters assumed turnout based on past elections.

  Ashley All, KCF spokesperson, Rolling Stone, 2022

• KCF worked as a support structure: messaging, literature, walk lists and field infrastructure. The local partners did the organizing in their communities.

  Ashley All, KCF spokesperson, Rolling Stone, 2022

• In focus groups and surveys, protecting constitutional rights and freedoms worked best, including with progressive voters.

  Ashley All, KCF spokesperson, Marketing Brew, Aug 16, 2022

Pick the moves that fit your context and add them to your kit.

1. A freedom message for the whole spectrum

   Anchor the campaign in a value the other side's voters already hold (in Kansas, health decisions free from government interference) and say the same thing to every audience. It was the frame that worked best in focus groups, including with progressives, and No took 59% in a state Trump won by 15 points.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   Works when the vote depends on voters outside your base and there is a shared value they already defend.

   Don't use when

   Fails if the message hides what is at stake: voters need to know what they are voting on, and your base needs to see itself in the campaign.

   1. Week −24 Run focus groups with voters outside your base
   2. Week −20 Test three frames and pick the one that works with every audience
   3. Week −18 Write the message in one sentence and the language rules on one page
   4. Week −14 Choose trusted messengers for each audience
   5. Week −10 Launch the first piece built on the shared value, with no party language
   6. Week −6 Check at the doors that the message lands; adjust the format, keep the content

   Team

   • Communications: sets the message and the language rules
   • Research: focus groups and frame testing
   • Messengers: doctors, clergy, grandparents, people with their own story

   What to measure: Undecided voters contacted who, in a second conversation at the door or by phone, say they will vote your way after hearing the message.

   Risks to watch: The message can sound vague or hide the issue: say clearly what the vote decides, use flesh-and-blood messengers and explain to your base why the tone is what it is.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

2. Do the electoral math

   Model pessimistic turnout and list the blocs you need to add up. In Kansas, with 44% Republicans and a low-turnout primary, the campaign went after Democrats, unaffiliated voters and moderate Republicans, and treated unaffiliated voters like any other voter.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   Works when your base can't win alone and there is public or lawful data to segment voters.

   Don't use when

   Fails with personal data used without a legal basis, or when the model becomes an excuse to ignore people research says are hard to reach.

   1. Week −26 Estimate likely turnout in a low scenario
   2. Week −24 Add up the votes you have and list the blocs you're missing
   3. Week −20 Build contact universes by bloc, within data protection law
   4. Week −16 Split the universes between the core and the coalition partners
   5. Week −10 Contact unaffiliated voters like any other voter, with the same care
   6. Week −5 Revise the universes using results from doors and phones
   7. Week −1 Focus the final stretch on supporters who might not vote

   Team

   • Data and targeting: models turnout and builds the universes
   • Campaign management: decides the priority blocs and the budget
   • Field: turns universes into lists and shifts

   What to measure: Contacts made per target bloc against the weekly goal, recorded on the contact sheet.

   Risks to watch: Political opinion data is sensitive: use only lawful sources, keep the minimum and don't segment by protected characteristics without a legal basis.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

3. A coalition with a shared kit

   A core that supplies message, literature, walk lists and field infrastructure; partners who speak to their own audiences in their own way. In Kansas, groups for young people, Latinos, Republicans against extremism and public-education advocates carried the same message to people KCF couldn't reach.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   Works when organizations with their own audiences already exist and the core can produce materials and lists quickly.

   Don't use when

   Fails if the core tries to control every partner or if each partner changes the central message.

   1. Week −30 Map organizations with audiences the core can't reach
   2. Week −24 Agree on a shared message and what each partner may adapt
   3. Week −16 Produce the kit: literature, scripts, walk lists by territory
   4. Week −14 Train the partners' coordinators in a short session
   5. Week −10 Reassign lists every week based on results
   6. Week −1 Back the partners' mobilization weekends

   Team

   • Coalition relations: delivers the kit and collects the results
   • Coordinator for each partner: organizes its own volunteers
   • Core field team: covers territories with no partner

   What to measure: Canvassing or phone shifts completed by partners using the core's lists, per week.

   Risks to watch: Partners with their own agendas can expose the coalition: agree in writing on message and funding rules and on who speaks for whom.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

4. Infrastructure ready for the wave

   Have donations, volunteering, registration and shifts ready before a shock brings in new people. In Kansas, after Dobbs, volunteers went from about 50 to 500 a week and the campaign raised $100,000 in a day.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   Works when a likely outside event could shift public attention before the vote.

   Don't use when

   Fails if it's set up on the day of the shock: without shifts, lists and training ready, the energy drains away into one-off rallies.

   1. Week −16 Prepare donation, volunteer and voter registration pages
   2. Week −12 Have canvassing lists and shifts ready for ten times as many people
   3. Week −12 Record a short training video for new volunteers
   4. Week −6 On the day of the shock, call people to a specific shift, beyond outrage
   5. Week −6 Call every new volunteer within 48 hours and book their first shift
   6. Week −3 Remind newcomers of the registration deadline

   Team

   • Volunteer team: welcomes, trains and books shifts
   • Fundraising: page ready and same-day thank-yous
   • Voter registration: deadlines and official links

   What to measure: New volunteers who complete their first shift within seven days of signing up.

   Risks to watch: Untrained newcomers may get the message wrong or put themselves at risk: short training before the first shift, always in pairs and with a named coordinator.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

5. Explain the ballot before the disinformation

   Say on every channel what a Yes and a No vote mean, well before the eve of the vote. In Kansas the wording was confusing and on August 1 anonymous texts said the opposite of the truth; according to the spokesperson, voters already knew what each vote meant, and the texts just made people angry.

   How to set it up, step by step

   Works when

   Works when the ballot question is technical, long or confusing and the other side can exploit the confusion.

   Don't use when

   Fails if it starts in the last week, or if you answer disinformation with anonymous messages of your own.

   1. Week −16 Write down in two sentences what each vote means
   2. Week −14 Put those sentences on every flyer, script and ad
   3. Week −8 Make one piece just to explain the ballot wording
   4. Week −8 Train volunteers to ask whether the voter knows what a No vote means
   5. Week −2 Set up monitoring of the opponent's texts and ads for the final stretch
   6. D-day week If disinformation appears, report it to the platform and repeat the explainer

   Team

   • Communications: writes the explainer and keeps repeating it
   • Monitoring: watches the opponent's texts and ads
   • Legal: files reports with the platform and the election authority

   What to measure: Voters contacted who can correctly say in conversation what a No vote means, as a share of those contacted.

   Risks to watch: Replying in the heat of the moment can spread the lie: correct it with the positive explanation, without repeating the false line, and always sign your messages.

   Add to my kitIn my kit

What the No campaign built, laid out for you to copy. It works for referendums, consultations, ballot initiatives or any vote where you need voters outside your base.

What works anywhere and what depended on Kansas in 2022.

Choose your country

The No campaign's sequence, from a year out to the day itself, as a checklist. Your progress is saved in this browser.

Five questions, each explained after you answer.

The rules below protect the campaign's credibility with voters outside its base.

Sign everything

Say who paid for every ad, text and flyer, even where the law doesn't require it. In Kansas, the lack of a signature left the eve-of-vote texts with no visible author.

No misleading messages

Never imitate the other side's language to confuse people. Answer disinformation with the positive explanation.

Messages only with a legal basis

Texts and calls follow local law: in the US, FCC rules; in the EU and Brazil, political messages only to people who consented, with an easy way off the list.

Opinion data is sensitive

Political opinions and health data are special-category data under the GDPR and Brazil's LGPD. Keep the minimum, aggregated wherever possible.

Transparent donations

Report every contribution and check where it comes from. In April 2025 Kansas passed HB 2106, which bans foreign money in amendment campaigns; KCF challenged it in federal court in May.

Labeled advertising

In the European Union, Regulation (EU) 2024/900 requires a sponsor label and a transparency notice on every paid political ad. See the “Law and platforms in the European Union” sheet in the Fundamentals.

Respect at the door

People who say Yes get a thank-you. The message asks voters to separate personal belief from the law, without judging them.

Safety for volunteers and patients

Canvass in pairs, have a protocol for hostility and never expose patients or clinic staff without consent.

It doesn't prove cause

Dobbs, the confusing wording and the unpopularity of a total ban all weighed at once. No data isolates the effect of the canvassing or the message.

You can't manufacture a shock

Part of the 2022 wave came from Dobbs, six weeks earlier. The method gets a campaign ready for a shock without depending on one.

One-day mobilization doesn't become a habit

Women, young people and first-time voters drawn in by the vote were more likely to skip the November 2022 election, according to Amos and Middlewood (2024).

Winning the vote doesn't end the fight

The legislature kept its anti-abortion majority; in 2025 it passed the ban on foreign money in amendment campaigns; in 2026 it put direct election of Supreme Court justices on the ballot, and 61.4% voted No. In November 2026, Missouri votes on repealing the reproductive rights amendment it passed in 2024.

The frame isn't magic

Between 2022 and 2024 the rights side won most of these votes, but in 2024 it lost in South Dakota and Nebraska and fell short of the 60% required in Florida (about 57%).

It wasn't a cheap campaign

KCF reported $11.47 million in contributions, with large national donors; canvassing was cheap, TV at scale was not.

Neutrality has a cost

The name Constitutional Freedom was vague enough that some voters didn't know which side the campaign was on; a message without the word abortion needs other voices so the issue doesn't disappear.

This playbook was built from interviews with the campaign's leadership and coalition partners, the Kansas secretary of state's official results, finance data, turnout analyses and reporting published between August 2022 and August 2026. All pages were accessed on October 27, 2026.

Updated 27 October 2026