MIAMI – On a recent weekday morning, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democratic front-runner who unseated Republican Sen. Rick Scott, gathered health care workers outside Jackson Memorial Hospital and delivered the speech that has become central to her campaign: Floridians should vote to protect abortion rights in a referendum in November, and if that matters to them, they should vote for her, too.
“Abortion access will be on the ballot this November,” Mucarsel-Powell, a former South Florida congresswoman who lost her seat to a Republican in 2020, told the crowd that had gathered to watch her accept the chapters’ endorsement. local and state offices of the Service Employees International Union. “And if we want to end these extreme bans, we have to stop the extremists who are pushing them.”
Mucarsel-Powell and her fellow Florida Democrats haven’t won a U.S. Senate race or an electoral vote in this once-purple state since 2012. They believe they’ve found something that will draw voters to the polls. and it could help her and President Biden win. the state: the November referendum that would enshrine abortion access in the state constitution, effectively overturning a near-total ban on abortion that went into effect this year.
Polls show the referendum is extremely popular. But some Democrats and voting experts in Florida doubt the measure could help boost Democratic turnout in a presidential election year. They cite Republicans’ large lead over Democrats among Florida registered voters, the willingness of some Republicans to support the abortion amendment alongside their party’s candidates and Mucarsel-Powell’s relative lack of statewide recognition.
“I think it’s going to be really difficult for this measure to be a silver bullet to help Democrats,” said Dan Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida who has long researched the impact of ballot initiatives. “I don’t see many Republicans breaking ranks and supporting Democratic candidates up and down the ballot on this issue.”
And the groups leading the push for the referendum, which rely on independent and Republican support to get the 60 percent of the votes it needs to pass, are staying away from partisan politics.
“This job is completely independent. It is a basic human rights campaign. It’s not a political campaign,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Yes on 4, the coalition pushing the amendment.
Abortion rights advocates have found success at the polls in the two years since the fall of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized the procedure nationwide. Voters rejected anti-abortion ballot measures in red states, including Kansas and Kentucky, and Democrats scored midterm victories in campaigns that focused primarily on reproductive rights.
But this year’s election, the first presidential race in the post-Roe era, poses a new test for Democrats and abortion rights supporters.
Mucarsel-Powell, who served a single term in Congress before being unseated in 2020 in a close race, has made abortion access a central issue of her campaign, often describing the state’s six-week abortion ban as an example. how Scott and Republicans are undermining the freedom his family sought when they migrated from Ecuador to the United States. Her campaign has hosted roundtables with Floridians, published digital ads and published in social media on the issue ahead of her August primary. Mucarsel-Powell leads her opponents in fundraising and endorsements.
Mucarsel-Powell, 53, said she agrees that abortion rights are not a partisan issue, and so she wants to convince voters across the political spectrum why, if they support the referendum overturning the ban of abortion, they should support her too. .
“The choice will be so clear that if they go out to vote to protect access to abortion, they will vote for the candidate who will make sure that we protect access to abortion at the federal level, not “For the man who wants to pass a national ban on abortion and has his name on the bill,” Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview, referring to Scott’s previous support for a nationwide ban.
“They need 60 percent,” he added, referring to supporters of the ballot measure. “I think they are going to receive 60 percent of the votes. I need 50 plus one.”
Scott, who is running for another term in office as well as replacing Mitch McConnell (Ky.) as Senate Republican leader, has sought to soften his stance on abortion as Republicans across the country have grappled with the issue’s potency in propelling Democrats to victories in the years since Roe was overturned. Scott, 71, opposes the ballot initiative in Florida and has said he would have enacted the state’s six-week ban if he were still governor. He has also expressed support for in vitro fertilization and said he believes states should determine abortion access.
Even if the abortion referendum passes, “it doesn’t really matter for the Senate race if no one knows who Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is,” said Chris Hartline, Scott’s senior adviser. “And that’s the problem she has now.”
Some Democratic operatives argue that the ballot measure alone will not have a transformative effect on the state, especially as economic anxiety remains high across the country and voters continue to tell pollsters that the economy is the top issue on their minds. . Democrats here also say that changing the party’s fortunes in the state will take time, money and organization. And so far, veteran party operatives say they have seen nothing to indicate a serious effort to win a state where Republicans now outnumber Democrats by more than 900,000 in voter registration.
Florida has become “the mecca of MAGA…it’s really hard to find and look for any kind of silver lining,” said Fernand Amandi, who helped shape former President Barack Obama’s Hispanic outreach in Florida and nationally in 2008. and 2012.
The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee have repeatedly argued that Donald Trump’s home state is at stake and said they plan to spend money there this cycle. But when Puck News recently… asked Biden campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon gave a one-word answer on whether Florida is a battleground state: “No.”
Dan Kanninen, director of battleground states between Biden and Harris, later walked back O’Malley Dillon’s comment, saying the campaign believes Florida is “in play for President Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot.” ”.
Support for the abortion rights measure is far ahead in recent polls. Scott has a narrower lead. The incumbent president leads with 45 percent support among likely voters, compared to 37 percent for Mucarsel-Powell, according to a recent study. KeynoteUSA-YouGov Poll. Another 18 percent of voters were undecided or indicated they would vote for someone else. The same poll found that 60 percent of likely voters in Florida said they would support Amendment 4, the abortion ballot measure.
Another survey, KeynoteUSAfound that 69 percent of registered voters support the amendment, including 50 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of independents and 92 percent of Democrats. The estimate of support for the amendment in the KeynoteUSA poll was higher than other polls this spring but indicates significant Republican and independent support for the measure, which is needed in the state where 65 percent of registered voters are one or the other.
Florida voters have a history of approving amendments adopted by liberals while electing Republicans at the top of the ticket. In 2018, for example, Floridians passed an amendment to restore voting rights to most felons and simultaneously elected Ron DeSantis to governor and Scott to the U.S. Senate.
Groups working to ensure the abortion amendment passes say they are already seeing that willingness among Republicans to support the amendment while continuing to express support for their party’s candidates. In conversations with voters, pro-amendment organizers avoid politicizing the amendment or tying it to any party.
“We’ll see people from across the political spectrum vote on this particular issue,” said Ashley Walker, general counsel for the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition, a bipartisan group pushing for the amendment’s passage.
Republican strategists acknowledge that some Republicans and independents will vote for Trump, Scott and both the abortion amendment and another that would legalize recreational marijuana. But some say they find it difficult to see how the abortion ballot initiative will be sold as nonpartisan, given Democrats’ focus on the issue.
“This is the heart and soul of your party. They have nothing else to run with in 2024,” said Ryan Tyson, a veteran Republican Party operative in Florida. “And I don’t think there’s even a chance they can make this issue bipartisan when it’s the only issue their candidates, both in Florida and across the country, are spending their money on.”
Mucarsel-Powell celebrates her heritage as an Ecuadorian-born Latina and touts being the first South American-born immigrant elected to Congress. But she emphasizes that she is running on issues that resonate with all Floridians: high insurance rates, a housing affordability crisis and the future of Social Security and Medicare.
On the campaign trail, she focuses on introducing herself to voters who may not have heard of her. During a recent day of stops at senior day care centers in a predominantly Republican area of Miami, she spent time listening to seniors talk about the issues that concern them. Most focused on the cost of housing, health care and other living expenses, and when asked about the election, they said they were excited about voting for Trump in November.
After meeting with Mucarsel-Powell, some said they were open to voting for her. When asked, several said they were not aware of the abortion ballot initiative, but some said they were also open to voting in favor.
Bernarda Concepción Fernández, 89, was one of those voters and said she would vote for Trump, that she liked Mucarsel-Powell and that she might vote yes on the abortion amendment. Fernández, who identifies as a Republican, said she did not know why the government was meddling in the issue of abortion rights in 2024.
“It’s obviously not something that affects my life today and I personally would never have done it; I believe that life is sacred, but there should not be a strict ban,” Fernández said as he held up a Mucarsel-Powell flyer that he planned to review. Of Trump, he said: “We need a strong man to improve our economy and handle the situation at the border. “It is terrible what is happening with so many people who come and think that the border is open.”
But even when Fernandez, a Cuban immigrant, spoke to her friends at the senior center about her reluctance to support Democrats – “a lot of them are really communists and that’s what ruined my home,” she said – she was open. to vote for Mucarsel. -Powell.
“I’m happy to see a woman wanting it,” he said in Spanish. “It makes me happy to see a woman giving everything.”
Scott Clement contributed to this report.
Keynote USA
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