In Florida, the election may be dominated by abortion. Will it aid Democrats in winning the state?
With a few notable exceptions, Florida has consistently been one of the most hotly contested states in presidential elections for decades. It is well-known for having helped George W. Bush defeat Al Gore in 2000 by a mere 537 votes.
Several more notable races in the state were frequently in close proximity. However, since 2020, it seemed as though Florida was quickly moving to the right, as Republican governor Ron DeSantis easily won reelection by almost 20 points.
However, state Democrats want to re-enter Florida's political landscape with the support of abortion access, which will be directly on voters' ballots in November alongside President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, as voters get ready for the next presidential election.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the campaign manager for Biden, noted in a memo early in April that "our agenda, our coalition, and the unique dynamics this election presents make it clear: President Biden is in a stronger position to win Florida this cycle than he was in 2020," highlighting the cautious optimism within her party.
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Back to Home: Here's the argument that Rodriguez and other Biden assistants have made: Biden is in a strong position to "assemble a winning coalition" of important voting groups in the state, including seniors, Hispanic voters, Black voters, and those who backed GOP nominee Nikki Haley over Trump in the 2024 primary. Floridians have rejected "MAGA politics" since the 2022 midterm elections.
Rodriguez highlighted problems such as the expense of living, access to healthcare, and assistance programs like Social Security in addition to abortion.
She stated in one of her memo, "Make no mistake: Florida is a winnable state, but it is not an easy one to win."
That is undercut, experts say, by recent history, which includes DeSantis' significant victory in 2022 and Trump's back-to-back wins in 2016 and 2020. Voters supported DeSantis, who also signed the state's restrictions on abortions after six and fifteen weeks.
However, all of those contests took place either prior to or shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, access to abortion has been severely restricted or outlawed in 21 states. especially Florida, where a six-week ban, with a few exclusions, is scheduled to go into place at the end of this month.
Many red and blue states have also presented ballot propositions pertaining to abortion to voters in the two years following the overturning of Roe. From California to Kentucky, Kansas to Maine, Ohio to Vermont, abortion access has prevailed in every instance.
Voters in Florida are scheduled to cast ballots on their own abortion ballot question in November. If approved, the amendment will change the state constitution and ensure that the procedure is more widely accessible.
The news that the Florida Supreme Court would permit the abortion ballot initiative to be on the state's ballot this year was warmly received by national and state Democrats earlier this month. Many, including Biden's campaign, contended that this would increase voter turnout and enthusiasm for pro-abortion rights candidates and benefit Democrats, as it has elsewhere.
One week before the state's six-week abortion ban takes effect, on Tuesday, Biden will go to Tampa, Florida to deliver a lecture on reproductive rights.
However, Florida Democrats are also conscious of the difficult task they have in November. According to the state website, of the approximately 13.5 million persons who are registered to vote in the state, 5.2 million are registered as Republicans and 4.3 million as Democrats, representing a difference of approximately 900,000 voters.
Beginning in 2021, the official voter registration advantage held by Democrats in the state for decades was lost.
Additionally, 3.5 million voters in the state do not have active registration with any of the main parties.
The Florida GOP head, Evan Power, argued that abortion is not the issue that will swing the state in favor of the opposition party.
"Democrats made [abortion] the No. 1 issue that they ran in on in Florida in 2022 and we won by 19% of the votes," Power stated to ABC News.
He stated, "This is what the voters sent their legislators to Tallahassee to deliver on and they did deliver on it," in reference to the six-week moratorium. Therefore, I don't believe that there will be any repercussion."
Florida Democrats told ABC News that the abortion ballot measure is motivating voters, despite their continued insistence that the state is "winnable" in this election year.
"Look, I think that the reality is, as the Biden campaign says, Florida is winnable and that this puts us on the map for the rest of the nation," Florida Democratic Party spokesman Andrew Feldman stated. "We were already seeing momentum in Florida before this ruling."
A few special and municipal elections held since 2022 have been mentioned by the Biden campaign and state Democrats as proof that Florida is still competitive, just as it was decades ago.
Democrats took over Jacksonville's mayoral seat for the first time in thirty years in May of last year when Daniel Davis, the CEO of the pro-business JAX Chamber, lost to former TV news presenter Donna Deegan, who received support from proponents of abortion rights.
Nevertheless, Florida Republicans assert that they have achieved significant advances in the state in recent years, largely due to voter support, and that Democrats will find it challenging to reverse these gains.
DeSantis has arguably benefited the most from the GOP's rise to power in the state. A few months after the Roe decision two years prior, he defeated former Florida Governor Charlie Crist by a margin of double digits.
MORE: A judge has ruled that Florida voters will have the opportunity to consider an abortion rights ballot item in November.
On the other hand, some predict that Florida's 2022 midterm elections will be a "outlier" in terms of how close the state will be in the 2024 general election.
Former Republican governor of Florida Jeb Bush's spokesperson, Justin Sayfie, a government relations consultant at Power Partners, stated that he thinks DeSantis' overwhelming win in 2022 was due to supporters of his COVID-19 policies, which kept the state open during the pandemic.
Sayfie predicted that since the virus has mostly disappeared from the public eye, voters would not be greatly influenced by it while casting their ballots this year. As a result, the proposed abortion amendment on Florida's ballot will likely garner more attention and increase competition in the presidential race.
He mentioned the results of the last four elections: two went to Donald Trump, and two to Barack Obama.
"Donald Trump's victory in 2020 was only by 3 points, so I think Florida is a competitive state," Sayfie stated. "And having reproductive rights on the ballot ... is a net plus for Democrats."
Feldman contended, on behalf of the state Democrats, that Florida's Democratic Party was less cohesive than it is today and that the 2022 midterm elections were likewise an outlier.
"We're the first people to say it; we were not in the game," Feldman stated. "We did not have an operation that did what Democrats do best in terms of turning out voters, in terms of coordinating, and we are getting back to a time now in Florida where we were in [during the] Obama years."
While Florida is within Democratic winnability, Nathaniel Rakich, senior editor and senior elections analyst at 538, said in an interview that the state is "slightly Republican-leaning."
Rakich noted that Biden's reelection campaign is raising a good deal of money, so he said it makes sense for the president to work in Florida, pointing out that Biden lost by a narrow margin there in 2020 and that low Democratic turnout was a factor in the so-called "red wave" that occurred there in 2022.
"I think people just have poor political memories and then look at 2022 and 2020 in Florida and they say, 'Oh that the state is gone,'" said Rakich. "But sometimes, you know, states kind of go off on little tangents in their political journey -- but then they kind of come back to the main road."
