Supreme Court may have handed Florida Democrats a gift. Will they fumble their chance? | Editorial

It was Florida Democrats’ worst nightmare materializing. With the party’s chances of winning elections looking bleaker, out-of-state donors began writing the state off, the Miami Herald reported last week.

Now, though, the U.S. Supreme Court may have handed the party something of a Hail Mary pass ahead of the November elections: the potential reversal of the federal constitutional right to an abortion, as a leaked court opinion draft suggests.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, can Democrats turn public anger — and polling that shows a majority of Floridians support abortion rights — into votes? Or will they, in typical Democratic fashion, get in their own way?

There’s still debate over whether abortion rights can galvanize liberal and moderate voters to the same degree that it motivates conservatives to turn out. On Tuesday, Democrats tried to build momentum when the party’s three gubernatorial candidates hosted or attended rallies on the issue, two of them in Miami.

The issue was already brewing in Florida. Republicans in the Legislature passed a 15-week abortion ban this year that doesn’t exempt victims of rape, incest or human trafficking. GOP leaders have been unusually tight-lipped since news of the leaked draft broke. But we wouldn’t be surprised if they went even further in curtailing reproductive rights if federal protections are lifted.

With stakes this high, state Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, told the Herald her party needs to have a “laser-like focus” on uniting behind abortion rights. Similar calls for a unified message have happened after stunning Democratic losses in the Sunshine State in the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections. But Democrats have struggled to convey a convincing message to voters while Gov. Ron DeSantis has free rein to govern like an extremist.

Red state?

The prospect of national observers and donors labeling Florida a red state has haunted Democrats since Donald Trump grew his margin of victory in the state in 2020. His support among Miami-Dade County’s Latino voters also grew. That emboldened Republicans to fast-track culture-war measures such as the infamous education bill critics call “Don’t say gay.”

DeSantis sees a decisive reelection in the fall as a way to solidify the GOP’s tight grip on state politics.

“My goal would be, if we win the election really big, people like you who analyze these things are going to say: ‘The days of Florida being a swing state are over. Florida is a red state.’ And I think that’s because of a lot of what we’ve done,” DeSantis told “The Truth with Lisa Boothe” podcast on Monday.

Democrats themselves often already act as if they were in a solidly red state. With six months to the November elections, Democrats until recently had yet to identify major candidates to run for two competitive Miami-Dade congressional seats they lost in 2020 by less than 3% of the vote.

County Commissioner Eileen Higgins and Miami Commissioner Ken Russell finally announced late last week they plan to challenge GOP U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar. But that two high-profile Democrats will face off in what could be an expensive primary hints at a party that has yet to have a unified front.

A Democrat has yet to challenge U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a former county mayor. Democrats have tried to recruit Zoo Miami spokesman Ron Magill, a popular fixture on local TV. Magill hasn’t yet announced a decision.

With control of the U.S. House at stake, Democrats should have settled on a strategy months ago, if not earlier. That they haven’t is an indication of a party in disarray.

Could Florida join Ohio and Iowa in the ranks of former swing states that took a decisive right turn in recent elections?

Florida has been written off before. George W. Bush won the Sunshine State by five points in 2004 — a larger margin than Trump’s in 2020. But four years later, and again in 2012, Barack Obama carried the state.

A candidate who energizes voters like Obama only emerges so often. Democrats hope the threat of the end to reproductive rights could have the same effect. Whether that’s enough to pull them out of the hole they find themselves in remains to be seen.