Biden predicts Floridians will pass ballot initiative to protect abortion access
Joe Biden assailed Donald Trump on Tuesday over the state of abortion rights in Florida and across the country, and predicted that voters in the Sunshine State would reject newly established restrictions on the procedure in November.
Speaking at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, the president cast the 2024 elections in Florida as the latest test of voters’ enthusiasm over abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, the landmark 2022 decision that overturned a long-established federal right to an abortion.
“Since the Dobbs deciPresident sion … states all over this country — from Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Virginia — women and men in every background voted in record numbers to protect reproductive freedom,” Biden said. “This November, you can add Florida to that list.”
Biden’s visit to Tampa came just a week before a six-week abortion ban goes into effect in Florida following a state Supreme Court ruling this month. Florida voters will also have a chance in November to weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment that would guarantee abortion access up until the point of fetal viability — generally understood to be around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
The proposal would also allow for a woman to have an abortion when it has been determined to be medically necessary to protect her health.
Democrats are hoping to use that ballot measure, known as Amendment 4, to boost their own prospects in Florida after years of flagging electoral performances in the state. After the state Supreme Court decided to allow the measure to appear on the ballot in November, Biden’s campaign blasted out a memo insisting that Florida is “winnable” for the president.
Biden sought to make that case Tuesday by tying Florida’s upcoming sixweek abortion ban to Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who has taken credit for appointing some of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned federal protections for abortions.
“Donald Trump is worried voters are going to hold him accountable for the cruelty and chaos,” Biden said. “The bad news for Donald Trump is we are going to hold him accountable.”
Biden’s visit to Florida was the latest sign that the president and his campaign see abortion as a political game changer, despite the state’s rightward shift in recent years. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled in a personal capacity to Miami last week, where he predicted that Florida’s unique place in the abortion debate made it a realistic target for Biden as well as for Democratic candidates down the ballot in November.
“We know it’s uphill. That’s exactly why I’m here, and it’s why we’re working hard here,” Buttigieg told the Miami Herald. “It is not only a canwin state for Joe Biden, it’s also a state that Donald Trump can’t afford to lose. So we see a lot of potential here, both today and for the long run.”
Republicans pounced on Biden’s visit to Florida. During an appearance in Naples earlier Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accused Biden of backing a ballot measure that “will mandate abortion up until the moment of birth” — a claim the amendment’s supporters say is false.