State Abortion Rulings Could Tip Election For Biden, Former Obama Advisor Says
Courts have put abortion in play in Arizona and Florida
Separate rulings by state supreme courts across the country could help drive voters to the polls and tip the November election in favor of President Biden’s reelection.
That’s according to a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama.
The highest court in Arizona on Tuesday upheld a 160-year-old law that bans abortions and punishes doctors who provide them, saying the ban that existed before Arizona became a state can be enforced going forward.
And just a week ago, the Florida Supreme Court upheld strict abortion restrictions in that state while giving voters a say on the issue in November with a ballot initiative.
This comes as Donald Trump this week declared his new position on abortion rights, taking credit for appointing right-wing members of the US Supreme Court who upended nearly 50 years of precedent for a nation guarantee of abortion access, and saying that the matter should be left to states to decide.
Abortion rights have become a potent issue for Democrats since the nation’s highest court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.
And these new rulings in Arizona and Florida will only help Biden’s chances to defeat Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, on Election Day, according to David Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama’s presidential campaigns and a top advisor to Obama in the White House.
“This has put the health care of women and peace of mind of women across Arizona at risk, and so we shouldn‘t have forget the substance of this,” Axelrod said. “… But as a political matter, this could not be more of a disaster for the Republican Party.
“Yesterday, Donald Trump said, ‘Well, it’s up to the people in the states to decide, let the states decide.’ Well, here you find what happens when you let the states decide. In Florida, a six-week ban is in place. I guarantee you, in both those states, if you put that on the ballot — and they will be on the ballot in the form of initiatives — that a majority of voters in those states do not agree with those policies.
“So I think what this does is it puts a battleground state more in the leaning D column than in the leaning R column because I think there‘s going to be a massive turnout in November for a constitutional amendment in the state of Arizona, because the voters of Arizona now have a demonstration of the fragility of abortion rights in the post-Dobbs era,” he added, referring to the 2022 case that the US Supreme Court used to end Roe v Wade. “I think this is an earthquake. Those electoral votes in Arizona could be the ones that tip this election.”
Biden narrowly won Arizona’s 11 votes in 2020, while losing Florida’s 29.
The potential for picking up those votes this year could make all the difference in what has been shaping up as a tight race in the rematch between Biden and Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Biden administration’s top spokesperson on reproductive rights, will travel to Arizona Friday as a result of the new ruling there.
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