The winning streak has come to an end. For the first time since the Supreme Court ended a federal right to abortion in 2022, voters have rejected a ballot measure seeking to enshrine the right to an abortion in a state constitution — even as a solid majority of Floridians voted to approve the measure. It was always going to be a tall order: Florida requires at least 60 percent support for proposals amending the state constitution — the highest threshold for any measure that has gone before voters in the last two years.
With 86 percent of the vote in, Amendment 4 had received support from 57 percent of voters, while 43 percent voted against. Beyond the practical challenges, organizers were also forced to contend with an unprecedented state-sponsored campaign to defeat the measure. Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis expended huge amounts of effort and political capital in an effort to tank the measure, after signing back-to-back bans into law restricting abortion — first at 15 weeks, and later at six weeks. DeSantis threw the full weight of the state government into a campaign to ensure the ballot measure went down in defeat. His state agencies spent millions of dollars in public money on TV and radio ads peddling misinformation about the measure, and the state also put up a website that claims Amendment 4 “threatens women’s safety.
” DeSantis and the Heritage Foundation teamed up to add misleading language — ostensibly a “financial impact statement” — to the ballot m.