WaPo: ““Access to abortion is 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 assembled to watch her accept the endorsement of the local and state chapters of the Service Employees International Union. “And if we want to stop these extreme bans, we have to stop the extremists that 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 have found something that will bring voters to the polls and could help her and President Biden win the state: the November referendum that would enshrine abortion access in the state’s constitution, effectively overturning a near-total abortion ban that went into effect this year.
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Some Democratic operatives argue that the ballot measure alone will not have a transformative effect in 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 turning around the party’s fortunes in the state will require time, money and organization. And, so far, longtime party operatives say they have not seen anything that indicates a serious effort to win a state where Republicans now outnumber Democrats by more than 900,000 in voter registration.”