The Florida governor warned that defeating the abortion-rights ballot initiative will still be a tough fight for Republicans both politically and financially.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis projected cautious optimism to donors at an investor retreat last weekend that pro-choice advocates’ effort to enshrine abortion rights into his state’s constitution this fall will not succeed, sources familiar with the matter tell National Review, though he warned that defeating the abortion-rights ballot initiative will still be a tough fight for Republicans both politically and financially.
The former 2024 presidential candidate told donors and close allies gathered at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., that he thinks his state’s 60 percent majority threshold for passing constitutional amendments is too steep an electoral hill for pro-choice advocates to climb, tracking with public remarks he made last week in which he maintained the proposed 2024 ballot initiative is too “radical” to pass.
DeSantis’s closed-door remarks over the weekend came days after the Florida supreme court handed down a pair of rulings that will allow a six-week ban to go into effect in a matter of weeks, while also approving language of the abortion-related constitutional amendment that would effectively undo those restrictions if voters approve of the measure in November.
The proposed constitutional amendment, spearheaded by the pro-choice group Floridians Protecting Freedom, will appear on ballots as follows: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”
One DeSantis investor retreat attendee recalled that over the weekend, DeSantis specifically mentioned pro-choice advocates’ ballot initiative success in conservative states like Ohio as a reminder that Republicans should be keenly aware of the challenge that lies ahead in defeating a similar constitutional amendment in Florida, which has trended redder in recent years.
DeSantis is not the only Sunshine State Republican bracing for a real electoral fight in November. “This is going to cause us to have to work harder. There’s no question about it,” Peter Feaman, Florida’s Republican Party national committeeman, told NR last week.
Also at last weekend’s retreat, DeSantis and his team held an investor feedback session and informed donors he plans to help fundraise this cycle for presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, the governor’s former presidential primary rival who last year called Florida’s six-week abortion ban a “terrible mistake.”
After spending his entire 2024 campaign declining to articulate a clear position on abortion, the former president announced this week his campaign will embrace a federalist approach to the issue that will oppose nationwide bans and push Republicans to embrace exceptions later in the pregnancy. Trump also made clear this week he believes the GOP must moderate on the issue to win elections, telling reporters at a Georgia airport on Wednesday that the Arizona supreme court went too far this week in reviving a 160-year old law that bans most abortions in the state. “Florida is probably maybe going to change also,” Trump added.