Florida rejects abortion and marijuana ballot measures as state sees major shift to the right

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Florida voters rejected ballot measures Tuesday to protect abortion rights and legalize marijuana, handing victories to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who used state resources and campaigned heavily to defeat the issues.
The abortion measure would have prevented lawmakers from passing any law that penalized, prohibited, delayed or restricts abortion until fetal viability, which doctors say is sometime after 21 weeks. The state’s restrictive six-week abortion law still stands. Florida is one of the first states to reject abortion rights in a ballot measure since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
LIVE RESULTS: Abortion on the ballot
The marijuana measure would have allowed people 21 years old and older to possess about 3 ounces of marijuana, and it would have allowed businesses already growing and selling medical marijuana to sell it to them. This vote came at a time when federal officials are moving to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.
The ballot measures needed approval from at least 60 percent of voters. In other states, abortion rights helped drive turnout and were a leading issue that allowed Democrats to retain multiple Senate seats in 2022.
DeSantis and other state leaders spent months campaigning against the measures. Democrats heavily campaigned in support of both issues, hoping to inspire party supporters to the polls. Republican have a 1 million-voter registration edge over Democrats.
Among DeSantis’ arguments against the marijuana initiative is that it would have hurt the state’s tourism because of a weed stench in the air. But other Republican leaders, including Florida resident Donald Trump and former state GOP Chairman Sen. Joe Gruters, supported legalizing recreational marijuana.
Trump went back and forth on how he would vote on the state’s abortion rights initiative before finally saying he would oppose it.
In comparison to 2020, nearly all of Florida has moved right during this presidential election cycle.
Miami-Dade County saw the greatest increase, with an 18 percentage point shift right. It was enough to move the county from the Democrats’ column in 2020 to the Republicans’ this year.
Florida is the third-biggest prize of the night in electoral votes, but Trump’s win is no surprise since Florida has been trending Republican for the past decade.
The last Democrat to carry Florida was Barack Obama in 2012, but it since has slipped decidedly into GOP ranks in statewide elections.
Ron DeSantis won reelection by nearly 20 percentage points in 2022, a political lifetime after the contested 2000 presidential election came down to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to stop the recount in the race between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush.