National Democrats’ media buy seeks to focus voters’ minds on abortion rights under threat

National Democrats are launching a campaign to remind Floridians that the GOP is pushing to take reproductive rights away.

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed Legislatures across the country to roll back abortion rights — as Florida lawmakers did — the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is making a six-figure media buy to remind voters that it could get worse.

A billboard is going up in Tallahassee dissing abortion bans and promoting President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as protectors of a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Also, a 30-second video detailing Republican’s efforts will be targeted to social media sites, courtesy of the DNC.

The video shows former President Donald Trump bragging about getting rid of the landmark ruling, Roe v. Wade, that made abortion legal, with some restrictions, for nearly 50 years. Gov. Ron DeSantis gets highlighted for signing legislation that makes abortion illegal before most women know they are pregnant. And next comes three more Republican presidential candidates saying they don’t support abortion rights either — including Nikki Haley saying “yes, of course” she would sign a national abortion ban.

It’s part of a media buy that’s happening in battleground states across the country, DNC officials said. 

“Over the last year, MAGA Republicans across the country have defied the will of voters and moved swiftly to take away access to reproductive health care,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a prepared statement. “This decision has already had devastating effects across the country and now, 2024 Republican hopefuls have made painfully clear that they will not rest until abortion is banned nationwide.”

If the state Supreme Court rules that a 15-week ban that lawmakers passed in 2022 is legal, a 30-day waiting period is triggered. After that, the procedure will be banned in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, except in documented cases of rape and incest, per new legislation passed in the 2023 Session.

The specter of abortion rights being diminished or stripped away is believed to have been a key factor in thinning an expected red wave into a trickle in last November’s Midterms on the national scale. Gallup polling, done annually each May, released findings this week that a record-high 69% say abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy. A majority — 61% — think overturning of the landmark precedent last year was a “bad thing.”

In raw politics, however, Florida voters defied the national trend and had a statewide red wave. The Republican Governor was returned to office by the largest margin in recent Florida history, and voters delivered a supermajority of Republicans to the Legislature

Since then, much ink has been spilled and pixels used up theorizing that the state has turned a more permanent hue of red, rather than purple.

The DNC’s campaign appears to be trying to focus voters’ minds on abortion rights to win more voters back to the blue side.

“The stakes of this election could not be higher and President Biden and Vice President Harris are the only candidates who will fight to protect a woman’s right to choose,” DNC Chair Harrison said.