Since the Supreme Court overturned the federally guaranteed right to abortion, the fight to reinstate it in individual states has never ceased. This extraordinary grassroots mobilization is changing the dynamics of the presidential race now that the referendum initiatives have passed in Arizona and Nevada, where they will be voted on concurrently with the presidential election.
Arizona and Nevada are key states in the Capitol Hill race due to their significant number of electoral votes—11 and 6, respectively. The candidate who wins the majority in the popular vote secures all of the state’s electoral votes. Winner-takes-all. Joe Biden achieved this in 2020, ousting Trump, who had won four years earlier. Biden leveraged criticisms of the pandemic’s handling, challenging the prevailing belief that Republican sympathies were dominant.
There is no doubt now that the decisive issue is the right to abortion, and Kamala Harris has made it a cornerstone of her campaign, capitalizing on unprecedented mobilization in terms of participation and objectives: to enshrine it in the state constitution to protect it from judicially imposed restrictions, as has happened.
The Arizona Secretary of State’s office announced today (August 13) that a record number of signatures (577,971) have been certified, well beyond the required number. The coalition, Arizona for Abortion Access, emphasizes that this is the highest number of signatures ever recorded for a citizen initiative in the state’s history.
In Nevada, to include the right to abortion in the constitution, a two-phase process will be required, with a second vote in 2026. The measures to ensure the right to abortion also vary in Colorado, Maryland, and New York. These measures focus on overturning existing bans or including abortion in anti-discrimination policies, but they will also be voted on in November.
In Florida, a citizen initiative seeks to enshrine the right to abortion in the constitution and protect it “from government interference,” leaving it to individual decision-making shared with a physician: the famous Amendment 4, which is at the center of a fierce battle. Donald Trump has spoken ambiguously and vaguely about this from his Mar-a-Lago residence. Four days ago, he held a press conference predicting that the vote in Florida this November might take a more liberal turn than expected, but he has not yet taken a clear stance on the issue. The very person who appointed the Supreme Court justices responsible for the dramatic federal overturn is now facing potential consequences for his re-election bid.