As Debbie Mucarcel-Powell wooed Democratic loyalists at a restaurant named for Thomas Edison, she was looking for some lightning in the campaign to unseat Florida Sen. Rick Scott.
So she turned the crowd at Edison’s Lab Restaurant and Bar in Fort Myers to the abortion referendum in Florida, where the inventor had a winter estate and laboratory, that could determine the fate of her bid.
“That man has never run for president when our voters turned out,” she said of Mr. Scott. Perhaps more important, she added to the cheering crowd, “He’s never run up against the millions of women and men who are willing to go to the ballot box to protect reproductive freedom.”
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, a former medical school dean who swept into the U.S. House on a 2018 blue wave, then promptly dropped out two years later, is an underdog. Mr. Scott, a wealthy fixture of Florida politics who served as governor for eight years, is riding high in the red state as he seeks his second term in the Senate.
But she has one thing on her side: the Floridian will Decision by referendum Whether to overturn the state’s unpopular six-week abortion ban.
In addition to Florida, Senate candidates from across the political spectrum in Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Nebraska, Maryland and Arizona Measures to protect abortion rights will appear on the ballot. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. The track record of such measures since ousting Wade, which has been presented everywhere, appears to bode well for the candidates who support him.
Yet on a brutal Senate map for Democrats, their candidates in conservative states, such as Ms. Mucarcel-Powell and Lucas Coons in Missouri, remain long shots. Even incumbent Democrats such as Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Jackie Rosen of Nevada have not been able to establish a clear lead behind their states’ abortion referendums.
In a presidential election, there is much else to dilute the impact.
“We know that these ballot reforms motivate a lot of voters,” warned Angela Kuffler, a longtime Democratic pollster who has worked on abortion initiatives. “We don’t know what that looks like in a presidential year — 2024 will be the great experiment.”
Mike Berg, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Democrats’ staking of their candidates for an abortion referendum will not work because other issues are more important. “Groceries are unaffordable, violent crime is out of control, and Democrats are encouraging a full-blown invasion of our southern border,” he said, using hyperbole on immigration politics, typical of the Trump era.
Ms. Mucarcel-Powell readily acknowledges that some Floridians will vote for Mr. Scott on the same ballot as he supports Amendment Four, legalizing abortion up to the point of fetal viability, as well as Amendment Three, a referendum to legalize marijuana. (Mr. Scott opposes both.) Former President Donald J. Trump has been inconsistent, suggesting that recently He may vote against Florida’s six-week abortion banAnd then says That he would oppose the referendum to overturn it.
“We have to make sure they don’t go out and just say yes on three and yes on four,” Ms. Mucarcel-Powell said in an interview. “They need to make sure they also fill in the candidates who are going to support it, and that was a problem before. I understand that.”
But Scott campaign spokesman Chris Hartline argued that many Florida Republicans have a small-government, libertarian streak. They would feel more than free to vote to keep the government out of reproductive issues and drug control, he said, but that wouldn’t make them Democrats.
The same can be said in other Republican states like Montana, Missouri and Nebraska.
Democrats involved in the campaign say, at most, the referendum could increase their vote share by two to three percentage points. That would likely be enough to top some candidates—Mr. Think testers — but not enough in deep holes for Democrats like Mr. Coons, the Marine veteran who is challenging Senator Josh Hawley in hard-red Missouri.
Like abortion rights referendums in other Republican states, Missouri’s measure has a good chance of passing. But Mr. Hawley, who opposes abortion rights, is heavily favored to defeat Mr. Coons, who supports them.
To maintain their majority, Democrats must win every race in which they defend seats in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Montana, Arizona and Nevada — and also win the presidency to maintain a 50-50 Senate tiebreaking vote. .
If he can defeat at least one Republican incumbent, he will make some waves, but his targets are in states expected to vote for Mr. Trump: Florida, Texas, Missouri and Nebraska. (In Nebraska, Senator Deb Fischer, a Republican, faces a surprisingly strong challenge from independent union organizer Dan Osborne.)
Ms. Mucarcel-Powell, like Kuncey, has argued that the Republicans she hopes to see out of office are vulnerable — awkward, unpopular and tied to the state’s abortion ban. Mr. Scott won his two terms as governor and his Senate seat by extremely narrow margins — never more than 1.2 percent — and only after spending about $160 million of his own money over 14 years.
That personal wallet remains large. Mr. Scott, whose health care was found responsible for the empire The largest Medicare fraud in history (He was not criminally charged), he remains among the wealthiest members of Congress, and Democratic leaders in Washington expect him to dip into his pockets again.
Democrats in Washington see the abortion referendum less as an issue that could put Ms. Mukarsel-Powell over the top and more as a rallying cry to draw national money from abortion rights groups in the state to counter Mr. Scott’s fortunes.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and the Democratic National Committee are taking note. On Tuesday, the Harris campaign began a bus tour of abortion rights in Palm Beach County, not far from Mr. Trump’s seaside mansion, Mar-a-Lago. The party’s chairman, Jaime Harrison, and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota joined for the kickoff, as did Ms. Mucarcel-Powell.
“He calls it the winter White House,” Ms. Klobuchar said of Mar-a-Lago. “I call it his retirement home. He is the one who got us into this mess.”
Wednesday was Day 2 in Jacksonville, but Ms. Mucarcel-Powell and Mr. Harrison headed to Fort Myers.
“The fact that they’re here in Lee County means they don’t count,” said Jim Rosinus, chairman of the Democratic Party of Lee County, a heavily Republican area that includes Fort Myers. “Florida is in the game.”
Yet seasoned Democratic strategists are pessimistic about the Florida referendum to help the party’s candidates. For one thing, because a referendum in the state requires 60 percent of the vote to pass, his supporters have tried to steer clear of partisan politics, knowing that support from Democrats, Republicans and independents will be needed.
For another, “it’s a matter of tribalism, whether my team is right or wrong,” said Kari Lerner, a former New Hampshire state legislator who has returned to her hometown of Fort Myers and is now running against Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, who represents the area.
In Montana, Mr. Tester’s campaign pointed to past statements by his Republican opponent, Tim Sheehy, that he wanted abortion to “end tomorrow” and Mr. Sheehy’s opposition to state referendums to protect abortion rights. But Mr. Tester did not create a referendum, which he supportsThe focus of their campaign.
Other Democratic candidates for the Senate, such as Representative Ruben Gallego of Arizona, have made abortion referendums one of several top issues in their states and have generally emphasized that Democratic control of the chamber would prevent a federal abortion ban.
In Nebraska, where Two competing abortion referendums Mud has been thrown over the issue, with Mr Osborne trying hard not to align himself with any major party as he challenges Ms Fisher. He has refused to support either referendum, one of which would protect legal abortion until fetal viability, while the other would limit abortion to the first trimester.
“Everywhere I go, I hear from Nebraskans who agree that promoting or banning abortion is not a politician’s job,” Mr. Osborne said in a statement. His aides said he would vote for a referendum protecting abortion until fetal viability.
Underdog Democrats are all in. In Missouri, Mr. Coons’ campaign is drawing attention to Kentucky, a Republican state where 52 percent Voters rejected an anti-abortion referendum in 2022 and where the Democratic governor, Andy Bescher, won re-election in 2023. In Michigan that year, an abortion measure helped the Democrats win the governorship. Gretchen Whitmer won re-election and her party won outright. Control of the Statehouse.
Roy Temple, former chairman of the Democratic Party in Missouri, declared that the abortion referendum “fundamentally changed the political landscape in Missouri.”
But Democrats in Washington are looking elsewhere for long-shot Senate pickups, particularly the Texas contest between Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, and Representative Colin Allred, a Democrat.
In Florida, Ms. Mucarcel-Powell’s pitch goes far beyond her support for an abortion referendum. A native of Ecuador, she is the only Latina Democrat running for Senate this cycle. She hails from Dade County in south Florida, where the erosion of Democratic support in 2016 helped propel Mr. Trump to his victory and sparked the idea that Florida is no longer a swing state.
And this is the first election cycle for Mr. Scott since he wrote his conservative policy manifesto, Abandoned by their own Republican leadershipThat includes a proposal to sunset Medicare and Social Security, which many elderly Floridians rely on.
Yet Ms Mucarcel-Powell’s pitch has always been on referendums, particularly abortion, and the hope that Mr Scott will finally face his Waterloo.
“People are really motivated to change Florida,” she said. “Women coming out to vote, getting them out with these two amendments, when independents are really engaged, will cross that line.”
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