几十年来，除了少数例外，佛罗里达州一直是总统选举中竞争最激烈的州之一-众所周知，它在2000年帮助乔治·w·布什仅以537票的优势击败了阿尔·戈尔。
该州的其他一些大型比赛往往也是如此。但是佛罗里达似乎正在迅速向右转自2020年以来，共和党州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯以近20个百分点的优势连任。
然而，现在随着选民为下届总统选举做准备，州民主党人希望让佛罗里达州重新发挥作用在堕胎权的帮助下——堕胎权将在11月与乔·拜登总统和前总统唐纳德·特朗普的投票中直接提交给选民，
拜登的竞选经理朱莉·查韦斯·罗德里格斯(Julie Chavez Rodriguez)在4月初的一份备忘录中写道:“我们的议程、我们的联盟以及这次选举呈现的独特动态表明:与2020年相比，拜登总统在这个周期赢得佛罗里达州的优势更大。”这凸显了她所在党内一些人的谨慎乐观态度。
罗德里格斯和拜登的其他助手提出了这一观点:自2022年中期选举以来，佛罗里达人一直拒绝“MAGA politics”，拜登在该州的关键选民群体中处于有利地位，这些群体包括老年人、拉美裔选民、黑人选民以及此前在2024年初选中支持共和党候选人妮基·黑利而不是特朗普的选民。
除了堕胎，罗德里格斯还特别提到了生活成本、医疗保健和社会保障等福利项目。
“毫无疑问:佛罗里达州不是一个容易获胜的州，”她在备忘录中写道，“但它是一个可以获胜的州。”
观察人士表示，最近的历史，包括德桑蒂斯在2022年的大获全胜以及特朗普在2016年和2020年的背靠背胜利，都削弱了这一点。德桑蒂斯还签署了该州为期15周和6周的堕胎禁令，并受到选民的欢迎。
但这些比赛都是在美国最高法院倾向保守的多数否决罗伊诉韦德案之前或之后举行的。自那以后，21个州禁止或严格限制堕胎，包括佛罗里达州，除了一些例外，该州为期六周的限制将于本月底生效。
在罗伊案被推翻后的两年里，许多红州和蓝州也向选民提出了与堕胎相关的投票动议。从加州到肯塔基州，从堪萨斯州到缅因州，从俄亥俄州到佛蒙特州，堕胎权在每一个案例中都取得了胜利。
佛罗里达州选民将于11月就他们自己的堕胎投票问题进行投票，这将修改该州的宪法，并保证更广泛的程序。
国家和州民主党人本月初对这一消息表示欢迎佛罗里达州最高法院将允许堕胎投票倡议出现在今年的州选票上，包括拜登竞选团队在内的许多人认为，这将提高投票率和支持堕胎权利候选人的热情，并有利于民主党人，就像在其他地方一样。
拜登将于周二前往佛罗里达州坦帕市，在该州为期六周的堕胎禁令生效前一周发表关于生育权的演讲。
但是佛罗里达州的民主党人也意识到他们在11月面临的艰苦斗争。根据该州的网站，在该州近1350万登记投票的人中，520万登记为共和党人，430万登记为民主党人，相差约90万选民。
几十年来，民主党人在该州的选民登记中一直占据官方优势，这种情况从2021年开始逆转。
该州还有350万选民没有在任何一个主要政党登记。
佛罗里达州共和党主席埃文·鲍尔(Evan Power)认为，堕胎不是让该州偏向反对党的问题。
“民主党人将[堕胎]作为他们在2022年佛罗里达州竞选的头号问题，我们以19%的选票获胜，”鲍尔告诉美国广播公司新闻。
在提到六周禁令时，他说，“这是选民派他们的立法者去塔拉哈西兑现的，他们确实兑现了。因此，我认为根本不会有反对意见。”
佛罗里达州民主党人仍然坚持认为，该州在这个选举周期是“可赢得的”，告诉美国广播公司新闻，堕胎投票倡议正在激励选民。
佛罗里达州民主党发言人安德鲁·费尔德曼说:“在这项裁决之前，我们已经看到了佛罗里达州的势头，看，我认为现实是，正如拜登竞选团队所说，佛罗里达州是可以获胜的，这使我们在全国其他地区的地图上。”
拜登竞选团队和州民主党人都引用了自2022年以来的一些特殊和地方选举，作为佛罗里达州像过去几十年一样保持竞争力的证据。
去年五月，民主党人掀翻了杰克逊维尔的市长办公室30年来，前电视新闻主持人唐娜·迪根首次击败了JAX商会商业团体首席执行官丹尼尔·戴维斯，她得到了堕胎倡导者的支持。
尽管如此，佛罗里达州共和党人表示，由于选民的支持，他们在过去几年中在该州取得了巨大的进展，这对于民主党人来说是很难克服的。
德桑蒂斯可能是共和党在州内优势地位的最大赢家。两年前，在罗伊案裁决后几个月，他以两位数的优势击败了前佛罗里达州州长查理·克里斯特。
然而，其他一些人在预测该州在2024年大选中可能会有多接近时，将佛罗里达州的2022年中期选举称为“异常值”。
巴拉德合伙公司(Ballard Partners)的政府关系顾问、前佛罗里达州州长、共和党人杰布·布什(Jeb Bush)的前发言人贾斯汀·萨伊菲(Justin Sayfie)表示，他认为德桑蒂斯在2022年的大胜来自那些支持他的新冠肺炎政策的人，这些政策在疫情期间保持了该州的开放。
随着病毒现在基本上从公众视野中消失，Sayfie说，这将不会是今年人们如何投票的一个重要因素-因此，佛罗里达州投票中拟议的堕胎修正案将吸引更多的注意力，使总统选举比其他情况下更具竞争力。
他列举了最近的四次选举:两次巴拉克·奥巴马获胜;特朗普赢了两场。
“唐纳德·特朗普在2020年的胜利仅领先3个百分点，所以我认为佛罗里达州是一个竞争激烈的州，”萨伊菲说。“并在选举中拥有生育权...对民主党来说是一个有利因素。”
费尔德曼与州民主党人一起认为，2022年的中期选举也是一个异常现象，佛罗里达州的民主党比现在更没有组织性。
“我们是第一个这样说的人;我们没有参与游戏，”费尔德曼说。“我们没有像民主党在选民投票和协调方面做得最好的行动，我们正在回到佛罗里达州的奥巴马时代。”
在一次采访中，538高级选举分析师和高级编辑纳撒尼尔·拉基奇说，佛罗里达州是民主党的获胜范围，但该州“稍微倾向于共和党”
由于拜登在竞选连任的筹款活动中表现出色，拉基奇表示，总统在佛罗里达州投入努力并不疯狂，并指出拜登在2020年在该州的败北幅度相对较小，2022年所谓的红色浪潮的部分原因是民主党投票率较低。
拉基奇说:“我认为人们的政治记忆很差，然后看看佛罗里达州的2022年和2020年，他们会说，哦，这个国家已经不复存在了。”“但是有时候，你知道，各州在他们的政治旅程中会偏离一些小的话题——但之后他们会回到主路上来。”
Abortion could dominate the 2024 election in Florida. Will that help Democrats flip the state?
For decades, with only a few exceptions, Florida has been one of the most closely fought states in presidential elections -- famously helping George W. Bush beat Al Gore in 2000 by just 537 votes.
Some of the state's other big races were often just as close. But Floridaappeared to be shifting rapidly to the rightsince 2020, with Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, cruising to reelection by nearly 20 points.
Now, however, as voters gear up for the next presidential election,state Democrats hope to put Florida back in playwith the help of abortion access -- which will be put directly before voters on the same November ballot with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump,
"Our agenda, our coalition, and the unique dynamics this election presents make it clear: President Biden is in a stronger position to win Florida this cycle than he was in 2020," Biden's campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, wrote in a memo in early April, underscoring the cautious optimism among some in her party.
Rodriguez and other Biden aides have made this pitch: Floridians have rejected "MAGA politics" since the 2022 midterms and Biden is in a good position to "assemble a winning coalition" of key voter groups in the state: seniors, Hispanic voters, Black voters and voters who previously supported GOP candidate Nikki Haley over Trump in the 2024 primary.
Beyond abortion, Rodriguez singled out issues like the cost of living, health care access and welfare programs like Social Security.
"Make no mistake: Florida is not an easy state to win," she wrote in her memo, in part, "but it is a winnable one."
Recent history, including DeSantis' big win in 2022 and Trump's back-to-back victories in 2016 and 2020, undercuts that, observers say. DeSantis also signed the state's 15-week and six-week abortion bans and was embraced by voters.
But those races were all held either before or just after the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative-leaning majority overruled Roe v. Wade. Since then, 21 states have banned or severely restricted access to abortion -- including Florida, where the six-week restriction, with some exceptions, is set to take effect at the end of this month.
In the two years after Roe was reversed, a number of red and blue states have also put abortion-related ballot initiatives before voters. Abortion access has won in each case, from California to Kentucky, Kansas to Maine, Ohio to Vermont.
Florida voters are set to cast votes in November on their own abortion ballot question, which would amend the state's constitution and guarantee broader access to the procedure.
National and state Democratswelcomed the news early this monththat the Florida Supreme Court would allow the abortion ballot initiative to appear on the state's ballot this year, with many arguing, including Biden's campaign, that that will boost voter turnout and enthusiasm for pro-abortion rights candidates and favor Democrats, as it has elsewhere.
Biden will travel to Tampa, Florida on Tuesday to give a speech on reproductive rights exactly one week before the state's six-week abortion ban kicks in.
But Florida Democrats are also aware of the uphill battle ahead of them in November. Of the nearly 13.5 million people registered to vote in the state, 5.2 million are registered as Republicans, while 4.3 million are registered as Democrats, a difference of about 900,000 voters, according to the state's website.
After decades of Democrats holding an official edge with voter registration in the state, that flipped starting in 2021.
There are also 3.5 million voters in the state who are not registered with either major party.
Evan Power, the chair of the Florida GOP, contended that abortion isn't the issue to tip the state in the opposing party's favor.
"Democrats made [abortion] the No. 1 issue that they ran in on in Florida in 2022 and we won by 19% of the votes," Power told ABC News.
Referring to the six-week ban, he said, "This is what the voters sent their legislators to Tallahassee to deliver on and they did deliver on it. So I don't think there's a backlash coming in at all."
Florida Democrats still insist that the state is "winnable" this election cycle, telling ABC News that the abortion ballot initiative is energizing voters.
"We were already seeing momentum in Florida before this ruling and, look, I think that the reality is, as the Biden campaign says, Florida is winnable and that this puts us on the map for the rest of the nation," Florida Democratic Party spokesperson Andrew Feldman said.
Both the Biden campaign and state Democrats have cited some special and local elections since 2022 as evidence that Florida remains competitive, like in decades past.
Last May, Democratsflipped Jacksonville's mayoral officefor the first time in 30 years when former TV news anchor Donna Deegan, who was endorsed by abortion advocates, defeated Daniel Davis, the CEO of the JAX Chamber pro-business group.
Still, Florida Republicans say they have made vast gains in the state over the past few years, thanks to the support of voters, which will be difficult for Democrats to overcome.
DeSantis has been perhaps the biggest winner of the GOP's ascendancy in state. He defeated former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist by double digits two years ago, a few months after the Roe ruling.
However, some others call the 2022 midterms in Florida an "outlier" when anticipating how close the state could be in the 2024 general election.
Justin Sayfie, a government relations consultant at Ballard Partners and former spokesperson for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican, said that he believes DeSantis' resounding victory in 2022 came from those who supported his COVID-19 policies in keeping the state open during the pandemic.
With the virus now largely faded from public view, Sayfie said that won't be a significant factor in how people vote this year -- and so the proposed abortion amendment on Florida's ballot will grab more attention and make the presidential election more competitive than it would have otherwise.
He cited the last four elections: two in which Barack Obama won; two in which Trump won.
"Donald Trump's victory in 2020 was only by 3 points, so I think Florida is a competitive state," Sayfie said. "And having reproductive rights on the ballot ... is a net plus for Democrats."
Feldman, with the state Democrats, argued that the 2022 midterm elections were also an anomaly and that Florida's Democratic Party was less organized than it is now.
"We're the first people to say it; we were not in the game," Feldman said. "We did not have an operation that did what Democrats do best in terms of turning out voters, in terms of coordinating, and we are getting back to a time now in Florida where we were in [during the] Obama years."
In an interview, 538 senior elections analyst and senior editor Nathaniel Rakich said Florida is in the range of winnability for Democrats but that the state is "slightly Republican-leaning."
With Biden doing well in fundraising for his reelection campaign, Rakich said it's not crazy for the president to put in effort in Florida, noting Biden's relatively small margin of defeat in the state in 2020 and that what partly contributed to the so-called red wave there in 2022 was low Democratic turnout.
"I think people just have poor political memories and then look at 2022 and 2020 in Florida and they say oh that the state is gone," Rakich said. "But sometimes, you know, states kind of go off on little tangents in their political journey -- but then they kind of come back to the main road."
