Many Democrats responded by reminding voters that Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the decision. Roe v. Wade, paving the way for strict abortion bans in many states. Biden also weighed in, using remarks and ads to identify the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision for Trump.
Democrats — who have seen the abortion issue mobilize voters in a way that has allowed them to score victories in deeply Republican states like Kentucky, Kansas and Ohio — are pushing to elevate the issue in other conservative-leaning states in hopes of putting Trump and his fellow Republicans center stage. defense.
“We take Florida very seriously. The idea that Donald Trump has the state in the bag couldn’t be further from the truth,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler told reporters Monday. “He not only owns the state of abortion rights across the country, but he also owns the restrictions that we see applying in Florida. So yes, that means there is an opportunity for us.
Earlier this month, the Florida Supreme Court approved a state law that would restrict most abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.
Trump – who had previously suggested the law was “harsh” – announced his own change in abortion policy on April 8, saying the issue should be left to the states and suggesting Florida’s law was “probably going to change “. But the next day, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions should go into effect — drawing immediate criticism from Trump and some other Republicans.
In Florida, voters will have a chance to weigh in on state law as the state Supreme Court has allowed a measure that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution to stand on the ballot. Like other such constitutional measures in Florida, the referendum would need to receive 60 percent of the vote to pass in November. Trump, a Florida resident, did not specify how he would vote on the measure.
Democrats hope the ballot question will increase turnout and make Florida — a state Trump won by 3.3 percentage points in 2020 — more competitive, at least for down-ballot elections, if not for the presidency, said Susan MacManus, a political analyst based in the Tampa area.
“It can’t just be about Biden running for president. It also has to be about Democrats running for congressional and state legislative offices,” she said, adding that even if Biden receives low marks from the state’s young voters, the abortion ballot measure could help him gain additional votes in this key voting bloc.
Biden, a practicing Catholic, has at times struggled to balance his personal and political beliefs in his public remarks on abortion. At a fundraiser last year, he said: “I’m not a big supporter of abortion. »
At a meeting of his top officials at the White House in January, Biden was careful to clarify that he was not pushing for “abortion on demand” but rather for a federal policy that would codify the protections outlined by Supreme Court judges in their 1973 Roe deer decision.
Several activists also noted that during last month’s State of the Union address, Biden did not say the word “abortion,” instead skipping the term in his prepared remarks and opting for alternative language like “freedom reproductive” and the right to “choose”. .”
Still, Biden and his campaign allies have tried to make abortion a key pillar of their 2024 campaign message, after a series of votes in various states showed strong opposition to strict abortion bans.
Florida, which has tilted decidedly Republican in recent years after decades of being the nation’s largest swing state, is a critical location for abortions, in part because it is surrounded by several states that strictly ban this procedure.
More than 80,000 women have abortions in Florida in a typical year, accounting for about 1 in 12 abortions in the country. In the months that followed Roe deer was canceled, many Southern women traveled to Florida to get abortions, fleeing restrictions in states like Alabama and South Carolina. When Florida’s new restrictions take effect on May 1, the closest option for someone seeking an abortion could be North Carolina.
Caroline Kitchener contributed to this report.
washingtonpost
