Abortion and open primaries are on the ballot in Nevada. What to know about the key 2024 measures

LAS VEGAS (AP) — It’s been more than three decades since Nevada voters overwhelmingly approved a law allowing abortions until 24 weeks of pregnancy. Now they must decide if they want to make it a constitutional right.

Nevada is one of nine states where abortion rights are on the ballot, as supporters in the state and elsewhere try to strengthen abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that made abortion legal nationwide for 50 years.

It’s a key issue that could drive voters to the polls in Nevada, a crucial presidential battleground, even if abortion access has been protected by state law since 1990.

Here’s a closer look at the key ballot measures in Nevada:

The 2024 election is only the first test of the measure seeking to enshrine the right to an abortion until the fetus can survive outside the womb, known as “fetal viability” which doctors say is after 21 weeks, with exceptions to save the mother’s life or protect her health. Voters would again have to approve it in 2026 in order to amend the state constitution.

It wouldn’t expand current abortion access in the state, but supporters and organizers of the initiative say it adds an extra layer of protection. State laws in Nevada are more vulnerable to change — the current 1990 law could be reversed by another voter referendum — but proposed changes to the state constitution have to pass in two consecutive elections.

Las Vegas resident Laura Campbell, 36, said she supports the initiative to strengthen Nevada’s abortion access. Without it, Campbell said she isn’t sure she would be alive today.

At 27 weeks, she said she learned that her pregnancy was nonviable, meaning the fetus couldn’t survive outside her womb. Her doctor took her hand and promised to take care of her.

“I was able to come out of that healthy and able to get pregnant again,” Campbell said. A year later, she gave birth to her daughter, now 3. “I could have been a tragic story.”

Opponents say the proposed amendment goes too far because it doesn’t clearly define “fetal viability.”

“It opens up a huge can of worms,” Davida Rochelle, 68, said.

Anti-abortion group Nevada Right to Life also said in a recent ad that the initiative is “deceptively worded” because it doesn’t make clear that abortion is already legal in the state.

Two different measures going before voters could alter the way Nevada residents cast their ballots.

An initiative to open up primaries and implement ranked choice voting would fundamentally change elections in a key swing state where nonpartisan voters outnumber registered Democrats and Republicans, and where 42% of voters do not belong to one of the major parties. Supporters of the measure say opening up primaries would give a voice to more than 1 million voters in the state who currently do not have a say in the nomination of major-party candidates for Congressional races and statewide office.

If it passes, all registered voters in Nevada starting in 2026 can vote in primary races for Congress, statewide office and the state Legislature. It would not affect presidential primaries and races for elected office at the local level.

Under the proposed system, the top five primary candidates, regardless of their political affiliation, would move on to the general election, in which voters would rank by preference up to five candidates. The first candidate to receive more than 50% of the vote would be declared the winner.

If none of the candidates immediately win the majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes would then be redistributed to the voter’s next highest ranked candidate. The process would repeat until a winner is declared.

The citizen-led initiative has faced opposition from both Republican and Democratic party leaders who say ranked choice voting is too confusing.

Another measure on the ballot would require that voters show photo identification at the polls. It’s the first time the Republican-led measure is going before voters and would have to again pass in 2026.

Nevada voters this election could vote to reject slavery or indentured servitude as a criminal punishment, which is still on the books in the state constitution.

Around 10,000 people are currently imprisoned in Nevada. Some make as little as 35 cents an hour.

There is no formal opposition against the proposed amendment.

People vote at a shopping mall, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

People wait in line to vote at South Valleys Library, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Reno, Nev. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vasquez)

A vandalized election sign is seen along Buffalo Drive on Election Day in Las Vegas, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

People stand in line to vote at the Reno Town Mall, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Reno, Nev. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vasquez)

Voting stickers are displayed on a table at a polling place inside City Hall, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

People vote at the Reno Town Mall, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Reno, Nev. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vasquez)

Voters wait in line to cast their ballots on election day Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. (L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

Betting odds on Presidential election results are displayed on screens along The Strip, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

U.S. stocks rallied Tuesday as voters headed to the polls on the last day of the presidential election and as more data piled up showing the economy remains solid.

The S&P 500 rose 1.2% to pull closer to its record set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 427 points, or 1%, while the Nasdaq composite gained 1.4%.

The market’s main event was the election, even if the result may not be known for days or weeks as officials count all the votes. Such uncertainty could upset markets, along with an upcoming meeting by the Federal Reserve on interest rates later this week. The widespread expectation is for it to cut its main interest rate for a second straight time.

Investors have already made moves in anticipation of a win by either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris. But Paul Christopher, head of global investment strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, suggests not getting caught up in such pre-election moves, or even those immediately after the polls close, “which we believe will face inevitable tempering, if not outright reversals, either before or after Inauguration Day.”

The Dow and S&P 500 futures were up slightly, while the Nasdaq futures were unchanged as of 7:27 p.m. Eastern time, as several states on the East Coast closed polls and early returns began coming in.

In Asia, some benchmarks were moving higher in early trading Wednesday. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo was 0.7% higher, while the Kospi in Seoul was up 0.5%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.8%.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind the former president’s Truth Social platform, tumbled 20% in after-hours trading. It closed 1.2% lower during the regular session, when trading in the stock was halted multiple times due to volatility. The stock, which tends to move more with Trump’s re-election odds than on its own profit prospects, rallied strongly last month.

Despite all the uncertainty heading into the final day of voting, many professional investors suggest keeping the focus on the long term. The broad U.S. stock market has historically tended to rise regardless of which party wins the White House, even if each party’s policies can help and hurt different industries’ profits.

Since 1945, the S&P 500 has risen in 73% of the years where a Democrat was president and 70% of the years when a Republican was the nation’s chief executive, according to Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.

The U.S. stock market has risen more in magnitude when Democrats have been president, in part because a loss under George W. Bush’s term hurt the Republicans’ average. Bush took over as the dot-com bubble was deflating and exited office when the 2008 global financial crisis and Great Recession were devastating markets.

Besides who will be president, other questions hanging over the market include whether the White House will be working with a unified Congress or one split by political parties, as well as whether the results will be contested.

The general hope among investors is often for split control of the U.S. government because that’s more likely to keep the status quo and avoid big changes that could drive the nation’s debt much, much higher.

As for a contested election, Wall Street has some precedent to look back to. In 2000, the S&P 500 dropped 5% in about five weeks after Election Day before Al Gore conceded to George W. Bush. That, though, also happened during the near-halving of the S&P 500 from March 2000 to October 2002 as the dot-com bubble deflated.

Four years ago, the S&P 500 rose the day after polls closed, even though a winner wasn’t yet clear. And it kept going higher after Trump refused to concede and challenged the results, which created plenty of uncertainty. A large part of that rally was due to excitement about the potential for a vaccine for COVID-19, which had just shut down the global economy.

The S&P 500 ended up rising 69.6% from Election Day 2020 through Monday, following President Joe Biden’s win. It rallied to records as the U.S. economy bounced back from the COVID-19 pandemic and managed to avoid a recession despite a jump in inflation.

In the four years before that, the S&P 500 rose 57.5% from Election Day 2016 through Election Day 2020, in part because of cuts to tax rates signed by Trump.

On Tuesday, excitement about the artificial-intelligence boom helped lift Wall Street following a strong profit report from Palantir Technologies. So did a report showing growth accelerated last month for U.S. services businesses, beating economists’ expectations for a slowdown.

The Institute for Supply Management said it was the strongest growth in more than two years. The report offered more hope that the U.S. economy will remain solid and avoid a long-feared recession following the worst inflation in generations.

Palantir jumped 23.5%. CEO Alexander Karp said, “We absolutely eviscerated this quarter, driven by unrelenting AI demand that won’t slow down.”

All told, the S&P 500 rose 70.07 points to 5,782.76 on Tuesday. The Dow gained 427.28 to 42,221.88, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 259.19 to 18,439.17.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.28% from 4.29% late Monday.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

Trader Robert Arciero works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

People pass the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

The Fearless Girl statue stands in front of the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

Trader Jonathan Mueller works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024 shows a broadcast talking about Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A currency trader stands near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A currency trader walks by the screen showing the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A currency trader walks by the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)