Florida heartbeat law helps DeSantis’s presidential prospects
Tom Joyce
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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed a heartbeat bill into law last week. The law will set a six-week gestational limit on abortion in Florida, with exceptions for rape, incest, human trafficking, and the life of the mother.
While critics say it hurts his chances as a prospective presidential candidate, they are misreading the situation. Politically, this was a good move for DeSantis. Most likely, it increases his chances of becoming president.
DESANTIS TAKES CHANCE ON ABORTION, IN STRONG CONTRAST WITH BOTH BIDEN AND TRUMP
If DeSantis runs for president, he will enter the race as an underdog. Defeating former President Donald Trump in a primary would be a tough challenge for anyone, but DeSantis likely has the best chance out of anyone to do it. In a hypothetical Republican primary, Trump would receive 49.9% of the vote, while DeSantis would get 25.3%, according to FiveThirtyEight.
If DeSantis wants to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he will need to take votes away from Trump to have any chance of beating the former president. One way to do that is to appeal to socially conservative voters whom Trump is failing.
Trump is running away from abortion in 2024. He has not committed to any specific policies to benefit the pro-life cause and has criticized the GOP for being too pro-life.
“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms,” he wrote on Truth Social in January. “I was 233-20! It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters. Also, the people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again. Plus, Mitch stupid $’s!”
Additionally, Trump neglected to mention the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in two of his more prominent policy-oriented speeches of the 2024 campaign thus far: his announcement speech last November and his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.
As the 2024 presidential primary stands, the pro-life movement has not coalesced behind a candidate because it has no reason to do so yet. There is not a strong pro-life candidate in the race. Trump avoids the topic, Vivek Ramaswamy thinks the federal government has no place in abortion law, and former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) has only expressed interest in a 15-week abortion gestational limit.
While most U.S. residents support legal abortion with limits, most Republican primary voters oppose it. Although 61% think abortion should be legal in all or most cases compared to 37% who disagree, Republicans think differently — 60% want abortion generally to be illegal, including 72% of self-identified conservative Republicans, according to a June 2022 poll from the Pew Research Center.
Support for legal abortion is higher among self-identified liberal and moderate Republican voters, but they are less likely to support Trump than conservative voters for many reasons. Two reasons include the perception that his lies about election fraud and his rhetoric surrounding women and racial minorities harm the Republican brand. Plus, moderate Republicans may disagree with Trump on policy.
That means DeSantis could earn support from liberal and moderate Republicans in the primary simply because he is the candidate with the best chance of beating Trump in a primary. Meanwhile, he would need to convince conservative voters that he is better than Trump on policy — and abortion is one of Trump’s weak spots.
Before any presidential candidate can worry about winning the general election, they must win the primary. Therefore, signing the bill was a wise political move for DeSantis, in addition to one that will save the lives of unborn children.
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Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.