A Few More Thoughts on Florida

 

  Josh Marshall had a recent post entitled "A Few Thoughts on Florida" that closed with this:

 Then we get to the question of the potential impact on the November election in Florida. I’d guess it could be fairly significant. We’ve all kind of concluded that Florida is now a red state. For Democrats that’s understandable because it’s been the scene of so many Democratic heartbreaks. But Trump won it by 1.2% in 2016 and 3.4% in 2020. The fact that Trump slightly improved his margin is definitely significant. But these are still very close margins. Winning Florida, I’ll still believe it when I see it. But with the abortion and weed amendments on the ballot I think the Biden campaign can at least make Trump fight and invest real resources in what for him is an absolutely must win state.

With some trepidation, I think Marshall (who is the best political commentator we have) is missing some important points, starting with how much of a powder keg we're talking about. Marshall says "there’s at least an argument that abortion should poll better" in Florida than in Kansas or Ohio, but we can go much further. Based on pre-Dobbs polling, Florida was way more pro-choice than either of these states coming in just one spot below California.

State     Mostly Legal     Mostly Illegal     Net support     

Florida      56%                     38%             +18     

Ohio

52%

43%

+10

Kansas      48%                     47%             +1    

Add to this that Florida now has effectively a six week ban on abortion.  As many have pointed out, that means that by the time most women find out that they are pregnant, it will be too late to do anything about it. Yet another reminder that Nate Cohn's argument that "Polling suggests an overturning of Roe v. Wade might not carry political consequences in states that would be likeliest to put in restrictions." has not aged well. 

How about the argument that Trump will divert resources to Florida? I could see that going either way.

While it's true that Florida is a must-win state, it is highly unlikely that it will be a tipping point. If things are going so badly for Trump that the dubiously named Sunshine State is in play, it might well be over. Given that the RNC has opened zero offices in key swing states while the Democrats have opened dozens, it is easy to imagine Don and Lara freezing out Florida in favor of places like Arizona that have some chance of putting him over the top.

 The real consequences in that case are likely to be down ticket. For example, more than 2/3 of the state's house delegation are currently held by Republicans. That is a lot of previously safe seats that now need to be defended. Add to that the statehouse and various state races. 

Either way, this is bad news for the GOP. They can spread their thin resources even thinner or they can put a number of elections at risk.