Liam Conner
When Arizona and Florida turned to the national spotlight over their battles against abortion, this question arose: Would the issue disrupt presidential contests in those states — or offset the weight on President Biden that inflation and the border have taken on him at national level?
And the answer, at this moment, is no. Biden is 5 points behind in Arizona despite winning last time, and Trump is comfortably 9 points behind in Florida after winning twice in the last two cycles.
Because despite broad support for abortion rights in both states, that effect doesn’t fully accrue to Biden — or harm Trump — as much as people’s views on finance and immigration shape the races.
In Arizona, with a border that many believe is in crisis, most say Biden has been “too soft” on migrants.
And there is a perception that things have changed over four years.
Compared to the summer of 2020, more voters now say recent immigrants from Mexico and Latin America have made life worse in Arizona. And many Hispanic voters say that today, too.
And then Trump’s policies are described as putting the interests of current U.S. citizens ahead of the interests of recent immigrants, while many Arizonans say Biden’s policies do not.
The issue may be hurting Biden among key demographic groups, including Hispanic voters.
For example, Biden won a majority of Arizona’s Hispanic voters in 2020, but is now running in a dead heat with Trump among them.
Hispanic voters’ attitudes toward the election and the contest closely resemble those of voters in general: they are dissatisfied with the economy, they think they will be better off financially if Trump wins than they would say the same about Biden, and they are worried about the border .
And there are a sizable number of Hispanic voters who now say recent immigrants have also made life in Arizona worse — indeed, even among those who say they have made it better.
(That said, Arizonans think transplants from other U.S. states have also made life worse.)
Most voters think Trump would take action to reduce migrant crossings, while most think Biden would not.
About economics
Many more voters think Trump will make them financially better off if he wins; and in fact, there are more people who say that Trump cares about his economic struggles in the first place, but both candidates elicit the majority opinion that he does not.
This highlights the problems with Biden’s campaign to address the effects of inflation, here as elsewhere:
Even with inflation cooling on macro measures, the overwhelming majority of Arizonans feel prices are rising.
All of this helps Trump lead.
There is an indication that the election denial and controversies that remained in Arizona politics and rhetoric after 2020 are still here. About half of Trump’s current voters would like to challenge the results if he lost. In contrast, the vast majority of Biden voters say they would accept the election results if Trump won.
Analyzing the impact of abortion
Meanwhile, in Florida, the abortion issue is not enough to move that state into “battleground” territory for Biden – Trump leads his home state quite comfortably. The same dynamics are at play in both states.
Here are some reasons why.
First, while abortion is important, it is not as important as the economy and inflation.
Second, support for abortion access – whether in principle or expressed as an amendment vote – is high, but there is no direct link to voting for Biden.
This is partly because there are a considerable number of Republicans who support the legality of abortion in at least some cases, but vote for Trump.
Furthermore, Trump has distanced himself somewhat on the issue, with half of voters neither blaming nor crediting him for overturning Roe.
And relatively fewer think Trump would approve a nationwide ban going forward.
The main dynamic seems to depend on whether or not voters are angry about Roe’s overturn, not just dissatisfied.
And in Arizona, it is frequent voters, rather than infrequent voters, who are angry about Roe’s overturn and who are more likely to say that the abortion issue in their state is increasing their motivation to vote this year.
There is majority support in both states for establishing the right to access abortion. In Arizona, a potential amendment that would do that, and in Florida, one that would get majority support, although, as is often the case with referenda and amendments, there is a lot of uncertainty expressed and a lot of people who haven’t heard or read about them yet.
Right now, Democrats are more likely than Republicans and independents to report having heard of these ballot initiatives.
And while many Democrats say the abortion issue motivates them, Biden still shows overall trouble motivating parts of his regular Democratic base.
Two other Arizona Democrats fare better than Biden — Gov. Katie Hobbs gets a slight majority approval and Ruben Gallego is ahead of Kari Lake in a potential Senate race. Gallego, among other differences, does much better than Biden among Hispanic voters.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Republican incumbent Rick Scott is comfortably ahead in their potential showdown.
To learn more about Florida, read here.
These CBS News/YouGov polls were conducted between May 10 and May 16, 2024. They are based on representative samples of 1,510 adults living in Arizona and 1,576 adults living in Florida. Margins of error for the total sample of adults: Arizona +/- 3.3 points and Florida +/- 3.1 points. Margins of error for registered voters: Arizona +/- 3.5 points and Florida +/- 3.9 points.
Antonio Salvanto
