WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: Florida’s Abortion Ballot Measure Will Fuel Turnout For Debbie Mucarsel-Powell

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: Florida’s Abortion Ballot Measure Will Fuel Turnout For Debbie Mucarsel-Powell

Abortion rights are officially on the ballot in Florida, and Florida voters are ready to reject extremism and hold Rick Scott accountable for wanting to ban abortion before most women know they’re pregnant. Floridians know they must support this ballot measure and vote for Debbie Mucarsel-Powell to stop Rick Scott’s national abortion ban.

Mother Jones: How Florida’s Ballot Measure on Abortion Could Give Democrats a Lifeline

• In the wake of the Monday ruling, some Democratic groups and experts see the abortion ballot measure as a rising tide that could lift all Democratic candidates in the state.
• Perhaps no candidate has more to gain from the presence of the reproductive-rights ballot measure than Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former congresswoman who is running against Scott to represent Florida in the Senate.
• Voters will decide whether to approve the referendum to allow abortions in the state up to fetal viability or let the state’s new six-week ban—which Florida’s supreme court also granted Monday—to stand. Simultaneously, Florida voters will choose between Scott, one of the country’s most vocal anti-abortion lawmakers, and Mucarsel-Powell, a staunch reproductive-rights proponent, to represent them in the Senate.
• “That’s the race that probably would be the easiest to tie the candidate to that issue,” says MacManus.
• Scott previously said he would have signed the six-week ban into law if he was still governor, he co-sponsored a bill for a national 20-week abortion ban in 2021, and he also signed an amicus brief in 2023 in support of restrictions on a pill that is used in medication abortions.
• “We’re going to make sure that Floridians remember that Rick Scott has been attacking women’s rights for years,” Mucarsel-Powell says. “One of the key issues here that Floridians will realize very soon and by the time November comes, is that it will mean nothing if they vote to pass this ballot amendment and enshrine in the state’s constitution a woman’s right to her reproductive health care if then they elect Rick Scott, send him back to the Senate, and then he pushes for a national abortion ban.”
• A Democratic Senate campaign strategist who requested anonymity to speak openly says that other ballot measures have passed on a non-partisan basis, and she believes the presence of the ballot measure in November will inspire non-Democrats in Florida to look beyond the Senate candidates’ political affiliations to see how their policy positions may impact them.
• The issue is “more literal now,” she says. “If you need an abortion, the closest place you can go is North Carolina.”

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