When millions of voters fill out their ballots in November, they won’t just be choosing elected representatives. Many states are offering the chance to impact conservation and wildlife as well, through ballot measures focused on things like dedicating more money to habitat protection or mitigating the impacts of climate change. One could even reshape wildlife management in one of the country’s most picturesque mountain states — and also lead to the indiscriminate deaths of all kinds of wild animals. 

And while ballot measures might seem like small potatoes in the grand scheme of electoral politics, they could have an outsized impact this year. The Trump administration has been systematically rolling back protections for endangered species, taking a hammer to longstanding pillars of climate regulation, and cutting funding to agencies like the National Park Service and National Forest Service, both of which oversee vast stretches of wildlife habitats. In many cases, states have had to step up, putting more resources into conserving the habitats and species within their borders, and ballot measures can help shape those decisions. 

Here are the seven ballot measures that could transform ecosystems across the country this election: 

California — Proposition 45: Cutting pesky environmental reviews, also maybe cutting habitats  

This ballot measure would shorten environmental review periods for “essential projects” like housing, water systems, clean energy, and medical facilities, among others. In a state that’s been struggling to build what it needs fast enough, this could help speed essential clean energy projects that could help slow climate change. On the other hand, reducing California Environmental Quality Act review time, as this proposition would do, could also lead to increased habitat destruction, leading advocacy organizations like the Sierra Club to oppose it. 

Georgia — Amendment 1: Tax breaks for conservation land (maybe)

This amendment might seem a little in the weeds — and mostly in the interest of farmers and ranchers looking for tax breaks. But it would double (from 2,000 acres to 4,000 acres) the amount of land an owner can get tax breaks from if they protect it under the state’s Conservation Use Valuation Assessment program. As Yanshu Li, an Associate Professor of Forest Economics at the University of Georgia, told me, the amendment could incentivize landowners to set aside larger tracts of their property for wildlife habitat conservation, which would benefit species like the nine-banded armadillo and the northern bobwhite quail that call these habitats home. 

Massachusetts — Question 6: A fund for nature

Question 6 would create a “Nature for All Fund,” routing existing taxes on sporting goods, recreational vehicles, and money spent at golf courses to conservation. That fund could then be used on natural resource conservation, making it the first time the state has a dedicated funding source for conservation projects.

Colorado — Proposition 137: More money for restoration and wildfire prevention

This proposition, similar to Massachusetts’, would direct existing sales taxes on sporting goods to a state fund dedicated to conservation and wildfire prevention. In a state where wildfires have torn through more than 2 million acres in the past decade, dozens of conservation groups are supporting this measure to protect habitats and species.

Arkansas — Issue 4: Waterworks and waterways 

Here, voters are being asked to approve up to $500 million in bonds that can be used to fund water-related infrastructure projects like water treatment, waste disposal, and wetlands infrastructure. A boost to wetlands under the Arkansas proposal could help animals that live in those habitats, which are often overlooked in this region. 

Rhode Island — Question 5: New money for climate resilience and habitat protection

This measure would allow for $55 million in bonds to fund environmental and recreational projects. The largest chunk of this change — $25 million — would go to helping to protect the state from the impacts of climate change. Another $7 would be devoted to protecting Narragansett Bay and its watersheds, which would include funding to “restore natural habitats and control invasive aquatic plants,” according to the Rhode Island Current. 

These ballot measures are all relatively straightforward so far, but there’s one question up to voters this fall that puts wild animals front-and-center — and is splitting hunters and anglers down an ethical centerline. Which takes us back to Colorado: 

Colorado — Amendment 83: A constitutional right to hunt…traditionally

On its surface, this amendment seems fairly innocuous. It asks voters to enshrine “the right to hunt, fish, and harvest fish and wildlife by traditional methods” in the state’s constitution. Hunting and fishing are already big in Colorado, and they’re protected by statute, so this may not seem like a major change. But, as Rebecca Niemiec, co-director of Colorado State University’s Animal-Human Policy Center and a Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioner, speaking for herself, told me, neither the text of the bill nor its proponents define what “traditional methods” of hunting and fishing would be allowed under this amendment.

“Read plainly, traditional methods could be interpreted to include practices like poisoning, leg hold traps, gill nets, or baiting and hounding,” Niemiec said. Many of these practices injure or maim animals, including ones that aren’t targeted: Steel-jawed traps and poisons don’t discriminate between, say, a deer, a wolf, and a lynx. All of these practices have been outlawed in Colorado over the years, either through other ballot measures or regulatory changes; in 1992, for example, Coloradans voted to ban hunting bears using bait and hounds, and four years later they banned leg-hold traps and snares. 

The new amendment also continues on to propose: “establishing hunting and fishing as the preferred means of managing fish and wildlife populations.” This would leave far less room for wildlife agencies like CPW to make nuanced decisions or roll out alternative programs, like birth control or animal relocation. It also reduces their ability to take into account the preferences of people who value wildlife for reasons other than hunting. 

“Biological science can inform decisions about how many animals can be killed without threatening a population,” Niemiec said. “But it can’t tell us what hunting practices are ethical, or how to balance hunting opportunities with the public’s desire to see wildlife alive — and protected from unnecessary suffering.” 

The push for these constitutional protections, Niemiec told me, is part of a larger backlash against conservation groups. But in this case, it’s not as simple as hunter vs. non-hunter: Plenty of hunters and anglers support taking ethical considerations into account when making decisions about how to manage wildlife, and some hunting groups in Colorado have publicly spoken out against the amendment. 

“If we’re going to enshrine anything in the Constitution, it should say we should be balancing the diversity of public interest in wildlife in all of our management decisions,” Niemiec said. “We need innovative methods, not traditional methods, if we’re going to deal with the complex challenges that our wildlife is facing moving forward in the state and throughout the country.”

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

Israel felt inescapable in the midterm primaries, especially for Democrats, where centrists and progressives clashed — memorably! — over military aid, Gaza, and (of course) AIPAC.

But with the Election Day almost upon us, the subject seems less prominent. When I Googled “Israel US elections” this morning, all the top results concerned next week’s Israeli parliamentary elections.

In less than two weeks, however, Americans will also head to the polls. They’ll decide which party controls Congress, along with a slew of state and local offices. The stakes are arguably unusually high: Voters will choose whether to check the power of a president who has bulldozed over historical norms and limits. 

As we count down to that momentous and potentially messy day, I’m partnering with my colleague Astead Herndon and Vox’s The Midterms, Actually team for weekly editions on the biggest issues shaping the midterms. We’re breaking down one issue each week and suggesting further reading and races to watch in November.

Previously, we dug into how both parties are changing, the bipartisan backlash to AI and data centers, and the politics of high costs. This week, we’re tackling Americans’ growing disillusionment with Israel — and how that will (or won’t) show up at the midterm ballot box.

Go a little deeper

You know the first part of this story already, because we’ve discussed it quite a lot: Americans’ views of Israel have nosedived over the past 18 months. 

That shift helped shape the Democratic primaries and will likely figure prominently in the coming presidential contest. But how much Israel matters in a general midterm election, to people outside the political left…well, November will really test that.

Voters rarely rank Israel policy among their top priorities. In a poll that the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted earlier this month, about 80 percent of registered voters said Congress should highly prioritize the cost of living during its next term, and roughly 70 percent said the same about ending the Iran war. By comparison, less than a third of voters said they prioritized cutting off aid to Israel. 

There’s another way that Israel factors into US elections, of course — and that’s in fundraising. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has become one of the biggest spenders in US elections and a repeat flash point in this year’s Democratic primaries. 

But in the general election, even AIPAC has been overshadowed by the GOP’s big-business donors, many of them in tech, who have given Republicans a historic spending advantage in this year’s contests. On Wednesday, the lobbying group actually announced it would no longer endorse political candidates or make direct campaign contributions.

In either case, whatever happens in the midterms won’t likely transform US policy toward Israel. President Donald Trump is still in charge of foreign policy, after all, and even if Democrats take back the House, they’ll have little ability to reverse his agenda. 

But a Democratic majority would gain “new congressional tools to act on Israel-Palestine issues,” Hady Amr, the former US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs, wrote in a new analysis for Chatham House. Those tools aren’t flashy (think: hearings, funding restrictions, and reporting requirements), but they could certainly set the stage for a broader policy shift under a Democratic president.

Races to watch:

• Florida’s Senate race, where Democrat Angie Nixon has criticized her party’s ties to the pro-Israel lobby;
• Michigan’s Senate race, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign grew out of pro-Palestinian activism; 
• Michigan’s (deeply purple) Seventh District, where progressive William Lawrence has vocally criticized US support for Israel. 

More from Vox: 

• The left is winning the argument on aid to Israel. The next step will be harder.
• The first true swing-state test for the Bernie left
• What American Jews want from the midterms

One link for later

➨ Gather ye roast spuds while ye may. Vegan restaurants appear to be experiencing a downturn of sorts: According to one online directory, the number of establishments fell from 1,717 last October to 1,509 now. But the news isn’t entirely or unambiguously bad. One added pressure on plant-based restauranters, for instance, is growing competition from mainstream restaurants that have started offering vegan dishes. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that North America’s largest wind farm has more than 900 turbines, each as tall as the Statue of Liberty, and encompasses an area roughly the size of Chicago? It just came online in June. 
• Today’s trivia: What’s the plural of Prius, as in Toyota’s hybrid hatchback car? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked after the definition of the word “cartomancy.” That’s the practice of fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Witchy!

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

There are low blows, and then there are rock-bottom blows. The latest attack ad in the Ohio governor’s race is undoubtedly the latter.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is spending $4 million to air a 60-second spot, which features the long-estranged mother of his opponent, Amy Acton, repeatedly calling her daughter a liar as somber instrumental music plays in the background.

The accusation is pretty dark, given the circumstances of Acton and her mother’s estrangement. Acton has disclosed in interviews that she was sexually abused by her stepfather between the ages of 10 and 12 — an allegation backed up by actual, contemporaneous evidence.

Police and court documents obtained by the Associated Press show that Acton’s stepfather was arrested and charged with her rape in July 1978, when she was 12 years old; he left the state after posting bond and died in Pennsylvania in 2004 without facing trial. 

According to both Acton and her mother, who remained married to Acton’s stepfather until his death, the two haven’t spoken in the almost 50 years. But that rift didn’t deter Acton’s mother from insisting, in the new Ramaswamy ad, that Acton had “lied her entire life” and was unfit to serve as governor. And it certainly hasn’t prevented Ramaswamy’s campaign from trumpeting the ad as proof that Acton is a “serial fabulist.”

Go a little deeper

This may be the ugliest ad in what has arguably become the country’s ugliest midterm election. Even before this latest attack, Ohio Republicans had branded Acton “violent” and “unstable,” sometimes portraying her as a drunk or a horror-movie character. One longtime political observer in the state called the tenor of the campaign “alarming,” noting that Ohio is no stranger to negative ads — but that this cycle’s ads were markedly more personal. 

That’s not just an Ohio phenomenon, either. In Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has faced nonstop attacks on his religion, including accusations that he belongs to an Islamic terrorist group. In Texas, Republicans have variously suggested that Senate candidate James Talarico is effeminate, gay, transgender…and/or pedophilic. 

Broader studies of how politicians communicate also suggest that political rhetoric in the US has grown measurably more negative over time. One new paper, published last month in the journal American Political Science Review, analyzed 4.7 million tweets, 2.4 million Facebook posts, and 184,000 email newsletters written by members of Congress between 2009 and 2022. Across three channels, the researchers found, the vibes grew increasingly partisan and negative. 

That isn’t to suggest that US political rhetoric is the worst it’s ever been. (We had a Civil War in this country, after all.) But it’s certainly the worst it’s been since I’ve been old enough to vote, and there’s no reason to hope that it’ll slow down. 

President Donald Trump is part of the problem: When he first began campaigning for the White House more than 10 years ago, he adopted a bare-knuckled tone that helped shift rhetorical norms in US politics. It would appear they never shifted back. 

But social media also bears some blame, the research suggests. Across platforms, political posts that skew partisan and negative tend to attract the most engagement — a powerful currency in modern politics. In one study published in 2022 that analyzed posts to X, formerly Twitter, between 2009 and 2019, researchers found not only that “uncivil” tweets earned the most engagement, but that politicians who got lots of likes and retweets on their nasty posts went on to make more of them. 

That might help explain, in part, why many Republican officials seem undaunted — even emboldened — by the blowback to this new Ramaswamy ad. The ad might be “dastardly” and “pretty damn low,” as critics have put it. But for some politicians, the outrage may be well worth the attention. 

One link for later

➨ Notice the change you want to see in the world. The hostility in our politics can feel overwhelming. Depressing. Utterly insolvable. But you can advance the cause of civility by not only modeling respect and consideration in your own interactions, but also noting those behaviors in other people. “Looking for the good moments of behavior that you see out in the world, starts to remind you that they’re there,” one etiquette expert told Vox. Think of it as a small antidote to hopelessness. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that elephants are one of the few animals to show interest in their dead? They frequently linger, and sometimes become agitated, around the remains of other elephants.
• Today’s trivia: Cartomancy is a form of what seasonally relevant practice? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you for the currency of Poland. That would be the złoty, which — as of this writing — is worth about 26 cents.