Democrats hoping to hold their slim Senate majority …while also gaining seats… say Texas and Florida are their best shot.
Democrats nationwide have championed abortion rights and are looking to build on gains among suburban women and other key swing voters since the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision in 2022. The party thinks many Texas and Florida voters are with them in believing Republicans have gone too far in restricting reproductive freedom.
Dallas mother Kate Cox made national headlines when she was recently forced to leave Texas to terminate a non-viable pregnancy after Republican officials argued she didn’t qualify for an exception to its near total abortion ban.
In Florida, activists secured enough signatures to put on November’s ballot a referendum cementing access to abortion in the state constitution — following statewide votes defending abortion access in Republican-leaning Ohio and even more solidly red Kansas and Kentucky.
Democrats are also encouraged by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz eking out reelection in 2018 by less than 3 percentage points over Democrat Beto O’Rourke. In Florida, meanwhile, Republican Sen. Rick Scott won his seat that year by around 10,000 votes out of 8.1-plus million cast.
“I think they are winnable states with the right Democratic candidate and the right Republican candidate,” said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “And I think we’re going to have both.”
Democrats have tried to characterize Republicans who are both allied with Trump and more moderate as extreme on abortion, arguing that the GOP is looking to take away access. “We don’t like government telling us what to do. That’s part of our personality,” said Mucarsel-Powell, who helped collect signatures for Florida’s abortion referendum.
Another key issue for Mucarsel-Powell is Scott unveiling a 2022 proposal calling for all federal legislation to expire in five years. That would force Congress to pass again what it deemed worthy, including Social Security and Medicare — issues of outsized importance to elderly Floridians.
[Mucarsel-Powell] immigrated from Ecuador at 14 and is seeking to be the second Hispanic woman elected to the Senate, joining Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. She makes frequent appearances on Spanish-language radio and answers questions without translation — potentially limiting some of Scott’s 2018 success in Hispanic advertising and outreach.
Allred, meanwhile, recalled Cruz leaving for a Mexico vacation during a deadly 2021 Texas ice storm. He called the senator, who relished his role as a conservative troublemaker when he arrived in Washington in 2012 and now is closely aligned with Trump, “the most divisive senator in the country.”
“Some folks say a Democrat can’t win in Texas and I say, ‘Well someone like me was never supposed to make it this far anyway,” said Allred who was raised by a single mother, played linebacker in the NFL and was a civil rights attorney before flipping a Republican congressional seat in 2018.
The Democrats’ Senate campaign arm is including Texas and Florida in an investment worth at least $1 million on research and communications staffers across nine total states tasked with highlighting potential weaknesses of the GOP candidates.
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DSCC Chair Sen. Gary Peters Statement on Anniversary of Leaked SCOTUS Opinion Overturning Roe v. Wade
