Kamala Harris ascendance drives Hispanic group’s Central Florida door knocking for abortion rights amendment

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Democratic enthusiasm continues as the Kamala Harris ticket establishes itself, and that’s translating to one organization ramping up its ground game in the Orlando area.

Mi Vecino will spend $600,000 on door knocking, with an eye toward mobilizing more than 200,000 Hispanic and Black voters under the age of 35.

The group looks to build on success two years ago, when they got 182,000 people to vote, with a third of them never having participated in a Midterm Election previously.

The primary goal is to get these voters to support Amendment 4, which would prohibit any law limiting the ability to obtain an abortion before fetal viability — generally between 20 and 25 weeks into a term — or if an abortion is “necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.”

According to data the group got while door knocking previously, 70% of voters ages 18 to 24 and 64% of voters ages 25 to 34 say they support the amendment.

Proponents say it would restore the right to an abortion in Florida to where it was until the U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned the landmark ruling, Roe v. Wade. For nearly 50 years, that ruling allowed women to end pregnancies up to 24 weeks of gestation. The new Dobbs decision moved regulation of the procedure to state jurisdiction.

“What we know from the state’s voting data is that our program empowers low propensity and inconsistent voters to cast their ballots,” said Alex Berrios, co-founder of Mi Vecino.

“We’re applying the same strategies that successfully mobilized close to 200,000 voters in 2022 to our Youth Voter Education Program for Amendment 4. We’ve already attempted to reach 56,000 of our target 206,000 youth voters and the preliminary results are encouraging.”

There is definitely room for improvement from the 2022 cycle, notes another of the group’s principals.

“In 2022, only 22% of youth voters turned out, which was below the national average of 23% and down 31% from 2020 Florida youth turnout,” said Devon Murphy-Anderson, Mi Vecino’s other co-founder.

“It’s also important to note that this is a small percentage of a group whose registration rates are already low — only 49% of young people are registered to vote nationwide. With reproductive freedom and women’s healthcare at stake across the South, we have to give Florida’s youth voters the information they need to make their voices heard, and that’s what’s behind Mi Vecino’s investment.”