CURTIS- Curtis is the biggest town in Frontier County, a county that pledged more than 85% of its vote to Donald Trump in 2020. On the 2022 midterm ballot, Curtis voters seemed to contradict their allegiance to Trump and conservative policies.

They voted down an ordinance that would have banned abortion within the city limits. They did so by a giant, 41-point margin. “I don’t think that the vote was necessarily a referendum on abortion,” said Brad Welch, mayor of the town of 806 people. “I think it’s just that it went too far. The ordinance that was presented … became too political.”

A total of six Nebraska towns had the abortion ban decision on their ballots. All of these bans ended up passing besides the ban proposed in Curtis.

Officials pointed to the combination of Curtis having the most complex and restrictive ban out of all six cities, and having the highest population out of the cities that had voted on such a ban. It included restrictions on businesses that entered into contracts with the city, stating they could not cover abortions in employee health insurance, cover travel costs if an employee needed to get to an abortion, or donate to abortion-related funds.

The towns that decided to ban abortion- Paxton, Hershey, Brady, Arnold and Wallace — the margins show that rural voters aren’t a monolith when it comes to abortion access. In Paxton and Brady, the vote difference deciding the measure was less than 19 votes.

The ban not passing did come as a surprise to both the Curtis mayor and multiple residents.

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