A ballot measure that would establish a right to abortion in the Florida Constitution is not on track to pass in November, according to a poll by The New York Times and Siena College.
A plurality of voters expressed support for the measure — significantly more than those who said they would vote “no” — and a large percentage of voters were undecided. But Florida requires 60 percent of voters to approve any ballot amendment, an unusually high threshold, and the poll found support for the measure falling well short of that.
Conducted between Sept. 29 and Oct. 6, the poll found that 46 percent of likely voters said they would vote for the abortion rights amendment, 38 percent would vote against, and 16 percent said they did not know or refused to answer. Voters in the last category were twice as likely to support former President Donald J. Trump for president as they were to support Vice President Kamala Harris.
Abortion rights groups have prevailed in all seven state ballot measures across the country in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.
Anti-abortion groups are hoping to stop that momentum in Florida, where a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy took effect in May. It is one of 10 states with abortion rights questions on the ballot in November, but in eight of those states, the measures require only a simple majority to pass, and polling suggests that they will.
While abortion rights have prevailed even in states such as Kansas and Ohio that, like Florida, lean conservative, they have not topped 60 percent in any of those states. (The highest total was 58.97 percent in Kansas in 2022.)
Pollsters say it is hard to measure voter sentiment regarding ballot questions because the language of those questions often confuses voters.
Other polls on the Florida measure over the last two months have shown significantly more support. Two polls, conducted in August and September, showed more than a majority of voters supporting the measure — 56 percent and 55 percent — but still short of what is needed for it to pass. In another poll at the end of July, after Ms. Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee, 69 percent said they would vote yes. The Times/Siena poll, which was the highest quality survey of the state in months, also found higher support for Mr. Trump than other recent polls.
These earlier polls asked voters whether they intended to vote yes or no using the exact wording that appears on the ballot: “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 health care 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.”
The Times used different, briefer language, asking likely voters whether they would vote yes or no on the amendment, “that would if passed legalize abortions up to the point of fetal viability, or generally acknowledged to be the 24th week of pregnancy.”
In polls in other states, voters were more likely to support questions that refer to “viability” than those that say “24 weeks,” a reflection of confusion surrounding pregnancy and the language of abortion.
The earlier polls were also conducted before the campaigns for and against the initiative began running ads, and before mail-in ballots began arriving at Florida homes.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has warned anti-abortion activists that he believes the measure will succeed, and he has been raising money and leaning into the powers of his office to try to defeat it. Last week, his administration sent a letter to television stations threatening criminal action if they did not pull an ad supporting the ballot measure. The 30-second spot features a woman who terminated her second pregnancy before Florida’s ban took effect, after she discovered that she had a large brain tumor.
“If I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life and my daughter would lose her mom,” the woman says in the ad. “Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine.”
The DeSantis administration notes that the state’s ban allows doctors to perform abortions when two doctors certify in writing that an abortion is necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman. But doctors say they are reluctant to grant these exceptions because it is not clear what constitutes a life-threatening condition under the law, and any violations could result in prison sentences of up to five years. State data shows that out of 33,000 abortions in Florida this year, 86 were performed in cases of life-threatening emergencies, roughly one-third the number from last year.
The ballots that have begun appearing in mailboxes over the last couple of weeks also include a financial statement beneath the ballot question, which includes language that abortion rights groups say is biased and speculative. That statement, which was approved by a Republican-controlled state panel, is more than twice as long as the ballot measure itself, and warns that the measure could result in high litigation costs for the state, as well as reduced revenues because it would result in fewer live births.
A website for the state agency that regulates health care providers says that the measure “threatens women’s safety,” contrary to studies showing that abortion is safer than childbirth. And earlier, Mr. DeSantis sent police officers to the homes of voters who had signed petitions to place the measure on the ballot.
As in other polls on abortion rights, the measure found the most support among women between the ages of 18 and 29, Black and Hispanic voters, and white voters with a college degree.
When asked which issue was most likely to decide their vote, the highest percentage of likely voters — 30 percent — said the economy but abortion was next on the list, tied with immigration at 12 percent. This is similar to other states, underscoring that abortion is far more important to voters than it was before the court overturned Roe.
A wide range of polls have found that abortion is newly motivating Democratic voters since Roe’s demise. That’s a flip of the dynamic that had prevailed for years, when anti-abortion sentiment was more likely to drive Republican turnout.
Democrats are hoping that the ballot measures on abortion rights might increase turnout for their candidates. But those since 2022 have attracted support from Republicans and outperformed some Democratic candidates even in reliably blue states like California.
Florida is not considered an electoral battleground in November. Still, some Democrats had held out a distant hope that the measure could help Ms. Harris and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democrat trying to unseat the Republican senator, Rick Scott.
If it succeeds, the measure would have an enormous impact on abortion access not only in Florida but across the South. Until this year, Florida allowed abortion until viability, and it had become an alternative for women from states that banned abortion after the court overturned Roe.
The post Poll Finds Support for Florida’s Abortion Ballot Measure Is Falling Short appeared first on New York Times.
