Last week, the Florida Supreme Court issued a series of rulings on the state’s abortion law that included allowing a pro-abortion initiative to appear on the November election. The pro-abortion White House, which made the issue a top priority in President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, responded quickly, as did other Democrats. There was even hope that this would mean Florida’s participation in the 2024 elections. But one last survey from Emerson College published on Thursday suggest otherwise.
Biden enjoys just 38% approval, while former and potentially future President Donald Trump has 51% support among registered voters in the Sunshine State. Eleven percent were undecided. Forced to choose one over the other, Trump led by almost the same margin, 56-44 percent.
SURVEY IN FLORIDA
Presidential elections 2024
51% Trump
Biden’s 38%.
11% undecidedWith a hesitant push:
56% Trump
44% Bidenhttps://t.co/FwsKYA2Agx pic.twitter.com/WXZ9lyNBCU— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) April 11, 2024
Trump won Florida in 2016 by 49 percent to Hillary Clinton’s 47.8 percent. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis also won his 2018 governor’s race by a particularly narrow margin. Since then, however, the state has become reliably redder. Trump won Florida again in 2020, this time from 51.2% to Biden’s 47.9%. Even though the rest of the country may not have experienced the red tide predicted for 2022, DeSantis won re-election by a historic margin, winning nearly 60 percent, with a lead of almost 20 points over Charlie Crist, this time running as a Democrat. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) also won re-election by a similar margin of nearly 17 points over former Republican Val Demings.
Not only is Florida turning redder, but DeSantis, who himself ran in the GOP primary against Trump before dropping out and endorsing him ahead of the New Hampshire GOP primary in January, is raising funds for the presumptive nominee. Attorney General Ashley Moody also opposed allowing the initiative to appear on the November ballot, which ultimately passed on a 4-3 vote.
Nevertheless, Biden’s re-election campaign remains hopeful. “Biden’s campaign announces its goal will be to flip Trump’s FloridaThe Hill reported later the same day as the verdict. Just a day later, another headline reported how “Biden Calls Florida Court’s Ruling on Abortion Case ‘Scandalous’.”” Yet another headline, this one from a few days later, read: “Democrats believe youth in Florida are voting for abortion and marijuana juicing”, referring to another voting initiative.
As The Hill explained about the Biden campaign:
Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez stated in the memo that investing in Florida is part of the Biden campaign’s path to 270 electoral votes. Trump won the Sunshine State in 2020 with more than 51 percent, compared to Biden’s 48 percent.
…
Chavez Rodriguez stressed that there will be abortion while voting in Floridawhere the state Supreme Court issued decision A ruling imposing a six-week ban will enter into force on May 1. Democrats see abortion as a winning issue for them in 2024 after experiencing better-than-expected results in the midterm elections months after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
“This new extreme abortion ban – one that Donald Trump personally paved the way for – will now amount to a ban for the entire Southeast. “Women in need of reproductive care across the region now face the choice between risking their lives or traveling hundreds or thousands of miles to receive care,” she said.
Biden AND Vice President Kamala Harris they were already deleting pro-abortion posts from their X accounts the day the decisions were made. Indeed, when the court allowed the initiative to be placed on the ballot as well as the 15-week abortion limit, paving the way for DeSantis’ heartbeat bill signed last April, the White House’s response was swift and stern.
On this issue, which is often on the minds of both the Biden White House and the re-election campaign, the next day Biden released statement he called the decision “outrageous” and engaged in all kinds of fear-mongering.
“Vice President Harris and I stand with the extensive majority of Americans who support women’s right to choose, including in Florida, where voters will have the opportunity to express their support for a reproductive freedom ballot initiative in November. We remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting reproductive freedom in Florida and across the country and will continue to call on Congress to pass legislation that restores protections Roe v. Wade in every state,” the statement concluded, referring to the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would actually expand Roe legalizing abortion in all 50 states up to birth for any reason and without restrictions.
Yesterday’s extreme decision by the Florida Supreme Court puts desperately needed medical care even further out of reach for millions of women in Florida and throughout the South.
This is outrageous – and made possible by Trump ending Roe v. Wade.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 2, 2024
The decision to allow Florida’s abortion ban to remain in place will harm not only Florida women, but also millions of other women who may have traveled to the state to seek reproductive health services.
Trump caused this health care crisis.@JoeBiden and I will…
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) April 2, 2024
Earlier on Friday, even after the poll was released, the Washington Post continued to publish an article detailing how “Biden’s team is increasingly hopeful that he will win the abortion issueThe state was only mentioned briefly in the following statement: “Democrats also point to abortion-related ballot initiatives as helpful to their Biden electoral prospects. “Florida has approved a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution,” although there is no mention of the poll.
But, but, but the mainstream media kept telling us that the abortion vote issue gave Democrats a chance to win Florida in November…https://t.co/90deLYGYYn
— Michael New (@Michael_J_New) April 11, 2024
The poll results also show what may not seem like the best news for the pro-life movement at first glance, as a vast portion of voters (42%) say they support the pro-abortion initiative. But there is another sign of hope for pro-lifers in Florida that goes beyond how Republican the state is. Unlike other red states that have passed pro-abortion initiatives, like Ohio, there is a 60% threshold. Twenty-five percent say they plan to vote no, and 32 percent are undecided.
When asked about the survey results, Dr. Michael New of the Charlotte Lozier Institute expressed caution in a statement to Townhall.
“It is often unwise to read too many results from one survey. That said, the results of this poll are still good news for pro-lifers. A compilation of polling data from both Ohio and Michigan showed that ballot proposals supporting legal abortion did not gain noticeable public support during the course campaign,” he explained. “Therefore, the fact that the vote tally falls 18 points short of the 60 percent threshold needed to win shows that pro-lifers have a good chance of winning in November.”
Emerson conducted the poll April 9–10 with 1,000 registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Perhaps Biden’s re-election campaign will return to the belief that Florida is not as vital as some believed due to the lack of campaign outreach, including when it comes to the state’s Latino population.
