American Passions. On Nov. 5, the same day as the presidential election, voters in the Sunshine State will speak out about abortion. This consultation, in mobilizing the defenders of this right, may galvanize the Democratic Party, which now believes in its victory.
On April 1, 2024, the Florida Supreme Court issued two important rulings. In one, it upholds state laws limiting access to abortion. By doing this, it paves the way for enforcement of the law, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, that prohibits abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, making Florida one of the most restrictive states on this issue. This is a significant victory for Republicans, but a short-lived one.
This is because in the other ruling, the same Supreme Court makes a referendum on the subject possible on Nov. 5, the same day as the presidential election. Months of grassroots work by feminist associations has thus paid off. The right to abortion up until the fetus is viable (basically reinstating the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which was nullified by the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling in June 2022) will be guaranteed in the Florida Constitution, if the referendum passes with a 60% majority. The same ruling calls for a referendum on the legalization of recreational marijuana to also finally be held on Nov. 5.
These decisions are very important for the presidential campaign, to the point of potentially flipping the vote. They may in fact strongly mobilize young female voters. Since Dobbs v. Jackson, referendums on abortion have sided with defenders of this right, even in conservative states. If voter turnout confirms the right to abortion again, who, between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, will this electorate favor? Nothing is certain, of course, but the prospect of these two referendums that can galvanize their opponents is bad news for Republicans.
Will conservative candidates base their campaign on an anti-abortion platform? Or will they choose to talk about it as little as possible? The first scenario would be a strategic mistake; with the second, they’d risk losing control, as Democrats will beat the subject to death with carefully chosen clips and storytelling. On Monday, April 8, Trump spoke out in favor of defending the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling and opposing a federal law limiting abortion. He knows that, even among Republican voters, there is unprecedented support for this right.
Personal Liberty
COVID-19 struck, and with it, so did debates on government interference in private life and personal liberties. In Florida, they were particularly contentious. Yet DeSantis’s law, precisely by rolling back this right that made the state a haven for women in the South, has widened the gap. And if male politicians dispute this right, who says they won’t do the same to others in the future? That will be the message Democrats aim toward independent and Republican voters.
Could Florida become a swing state, or rather, shift power to the Democratic Party again? Trump won the state over Biden by three points in 2020, but DeSantis was reelected governor with a 19-point lead in 2022. Senate seats (that of Rick Scott, for example, won narrowly in 2018) and the House of Representatives are also in play. Yet, small impacts at the margin in certain districts could be enough to tip the balance of the majority.
Therefore, Democrats are confident in their victory, which would give the Sunshine State’s 30 electoral votes to Biden (triple those of Wisconsin and double Michigan’s). While Alabama amplifies the argument, recognizing frozen embryos as people, and the U.S. Supreme Court is set to make a decision regarding abortion pills, the White House promises a federal law guaranteeing nationwide access to abortion on its part and, on March 18, published an executive order to advance research and innovation in the field of women’s health. Additionally, the federal government just facilitated access to in vitro fertilization for its civil servants, notably including a reimbursement of up to $25,000 a year for IVF procedures.
In the 2022 midterm elections, Democratic candidates for Congress and governorships who supported the right to abortion performed better than Biden did in 2020, notably in the key states of Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, among a very specific and coveted electorate: white women with college degrees living in suburbs. Trump would like to regain support from these types of voters. His current message to them is primarily focused on security and nationalism, claiming to want to protect them from “rapist migrants.” Can he, with his overt refusal to go further than Dobbs v. Jackson, of which he is one of the major architects, convince them to vote for him (again)?
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