President Joe Biden‘s campaign is casting an eye back at former President Barack Obama‘s performance in Florida in 2012 as it looks ahead for a path to victory for Biden in former President Donald Trump‘s home state.
“Whenever abortion bans and abortion rights have been on the ballot, they’ve won,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler told reporters Monday. “The last time there was an abortion referendum on the ballot in 2012, President Obama won the state. So with our enormous financial advantage, the Biden-Harris campaign can afford to invest in many paths to victory, and that includes Florida.”
Biden will be in Tampa, Florida, for a campaign rally and fundraiser on Tuesday, one week before Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R-FL) six-week abortion ban becomes law. But in another decision published the same day Florida’s Supreme Court ruled the ban was constitutional, the justices also found a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at expanding abortion access to about 24 weeks of pregnancy could appear on the state’s ballots in November.
Tyler contended Biden had other advantages in Florida, including his position on entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, in addition to on social issues, from critical race theory to gender ideology, and criticism of DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who is also seeking reelection in six months.
“I don’t think the president coming to the state tomorrow to talk about the fundamental stakes in this election for women in Florida and across the country is window dressing,” Tyler said. “We take Florida very seriously.”
“We’ve got staff on the ground,” he added. “You’ve seen our paid investments begin to pop up in the state of Florida. It is one of the pathways that we have to 270 electoral votes, and we’re going to take it very, very seriously tomorrow and throughout the rest of the election.”
Biden lost Florida to Trump by 3 percentage points in 2020, and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lost the state to Trump by 1 point that cycle, but Obama won it over now-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) by less than a point in 2012. Simultaneously, a Florida Atlantic University PolCom Lab-Mainstreet Research poll of likely voters last week found Trump has a 9-point lead over Biden, 49% to 40%.
“When Florida’s ban takes effect, it will severely restrict reproductive healthcare access across the entire Southeastern United States, including neighboring battlegrounds of Georgia and North Carolina — two states with abortion bans on the books thanks to Donald Trump,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a separate memo circulated Tuesday. “Many women in the Southeast desperately in need of care will have to drive for a day or more to reach the closest clinic, further straining resources for providers that are already struggling to serve women coming from states with bans.”
Tyler was accompanied on the press call by the Biden campaign and Democratic National Committee Arizona senior adviser Jen Cox and their Wisconsin coordinated campaign senior adviser Tanya Bjork.
Cox told reporters a petition for an Arizona abortion ballot measure had received more than 500,000 signatures two weeks after the state’s Supreme Court decided an 1864 abortion ban, with exceptions only in place to protect the life of the mother, was enforceable, pending legal challenges. Abortion will indirectly be on Wisconsin’s ballot in 2025 because of a retirement on the state’s Supreme Court, announced this month.
Trump has criticized the ruling, arguing the Arizona Supreme Court “went too far” and describing the abortion ban as “inappropriate.” He encouraged the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to use “heart” and “common sense” to “remedy what has happened.”
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“Remember, it is now up to the States and the Good Will of those that represent THE PEOPLE,” Trump wrote on social media this month. “We must ideally have the three Exceptions for Rape, Incest, and Life of the Mother. This is important!”
“Democrats are the EXTREMISTS,” he added. “Arizona Legislature, please act as fast as possible!”
