For months, Amber Hruska's life has been a blur of sleepless nights and intense days spent campaigning.
The 41-year-old from Kansas estimates she has knocked on about 1,000 doors and trained dozens of volunteers to try to prevent abortion rights from being removed from the state's constitution.
Even she was surprised by the outcome of the vote, which saw a traditionally conservative pocket of the United States reject a push to restrict abortion access.
"I was cautiously optimistic. And then I was just blown away," she told the ABC from the city of Overland Park.
"I think that this is such an important decision."
With 95 per cent of votes counted, the abortion-supporting "no" side is safely ahead 59 to 41 per cent.
The tally roughly matches the breakdown of Americans who say they oppose the US Supreme Court's recent decision to topple Roe v Wade.
And while abortion opponents in Kansas have described it as a "temporary setback", others see it as a resounding rebuke of the Supreme Court.
With midterm elections looming in November, how far that backlash extends could have major consequences for the rest of the country.
How the campaign unfolded
It's rare for Kansas politics to cut through in the national media, particularly in an August primary.
But the result of the referendum was being closely watched, not least because it was the first time the issue of abortion rights was put to voters post-Roe.
The constitutional amendment, called Value Them Both, was proposed by Republican politicians after the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the state's constitution protected the right to end a pregnancy.
A winning "yes" vote would have opened the doors for the Republic-controlled state legislature to ban abortion, although those behind the amendment denied that was their aim.
The contest took on fresh urgency in June when the US Supreme Court handed the power to legislate abortion back to the states, redrawing America's abortion map almost overnight.
Kansas, which allows abortion up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, has since become a sanctuary state in the Midwest, absorbing hundreds of patients from neighbouring Oklahoma and Missouri, both of which have enacted harsh bans.
When the ABC recently visited Wichita, the state's largest city, markers of the upcoming vote were visible everywhere, with blue "hands off our rights" lawn signs facing off against purple "vote yes!" bumper stickers in the suburbs.
An estimated $US12 million ($17 million) poured into the race to fund advertising for both sides, according to the New York Times.
By voting "no" — in overwhelming numbers — Kansans not only upheld the right to abortion in their state but kept open a narrow window of access for patients forced to travel interstate.
At least for now.
"While the outcome is not what we hoped, our movement and campaign have proven our resolve and commitment," a spokesperson for the Value Them Both campaign said.
"We will be back."
Democrats hope abortion rights could motivate their voters
The result may be read as a bellwether of the national mood ahead of the midterm election.
It has certainly led to a flurry of speculation over whether abortion rights could motivate disillusioned Democrats to vote, particularly amid record-high inflation and record-low approval ratings for President Joe Biden.
In Kansas, Republicans routinely win elections, including former president Donald Trump, who held the state in 2020.
"What you see here, though, is that the Republican Party has put itself in a very difficult spot on the abortion question," said Professor Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.
"It is much better to be a Republican running against abortion when abortion is legal than to be asking voters how to react once abortion is under the kind of threat that it's under right now."
More than 900,000 voters turned out in the state of 2.9 million people, which is unusually high for a primary.
Notably, the number of Democrats rose 60 per cent since the last comparable vote in 2018.
Voters have historically used midterm elections to punish the party that holds the White House.
The Democratic Party is widely expected to lose its already slim majorities in the House and Senate.
"What the abortion decision by the Supreme Court has done has given Democrats something to talk about other than inflation," Mr Farnsworth said.
"It's given Democrats something to talk about other than the frustrations that some voters might have with Joe Biden, perhaps he's not going far enough. Perhaps he's going too far. Whatever it is, the angry voters are most likely to turn."
Mr Biden welcomed the outcome in Kansas as a "powerful signal" that "politicians should not interfere with the fundamental rights of women".
Appearing virtually at a meeting of a federal task force set up to focus on reproductive rights, he signed an executive order aimed at making it easier for women to travel interstate for an abortion.
It is a relatively limited step, which follows an order to expand access to medication abortions and a Department of Justice lawsuit challenging a ban in Idaho.
Amid mounting pressure over his handling of the US economy, the President is hoping the fight for abortion rights could buoy his party in choppy electoral waters.
But with voters likely to be considering a raft of issues, Professor Farnsworth cautions against overestimating the significance of the Kansas result.
"When we're talking about the outcome of a primary in August, and we're talking then about trying to read into an election in November, a lot can happen over the next several months."
