Politics - News Analysis

Overturning Roe Leaves Ron DeSantis in BIG Trouble: Suddenly, He Could Lose the Governor Race this November

As we reported yesterday, the dog finally caught the car. Given that everyone on this staff is a dog lover, we’ll only say that the dog got a fat lip and found out cars don’t taste good. MAGAs are about to learn a lesson that most of them, at least the politicians, likely never believed they would actually have to face what a car can do to them.

For decades, Republicans have ran on the “Right to Life,” promising to promote justices and laws that would deprive abortion rights. They were a very very loud minority. Indeed, the issue was such a fundamental part of being a Republican that primaries couldn’t be won without declaring oneself “pro-life.”

Juxtaposed against this very loud minority was a fairly large minority of liberal-progressive women that recognized the danger that these justices posed. Many women (in particular, but also LGBTQ family and men) understood that the right, and other rights, were endangered any time a Republican president won. Amazingly, only one Republican candidate has won a majority of American votes in the last 30 years but McConnell ensured that four conservative justices were approved in that time period. So a sizeable minority of progressive women understood the threat.

And then there was everyone in the middle, probably another 30% that voted on other issues under the presumption that the SCOTUS would never overrule itself, after all, the SCOTUS doesn’t do that and abortion rights had already been affirmed twice. The vast majority of these people favored abortion access at least in some cases.

So now, the dog caught the car. Very very suddenly, MAGA candidates must face the fact that the majority of the voters in many states are pro-choice, including states like Florida, and that is very interesting. Two days ago, DeSantis looked like the dream MAGA candidate, in charge of both his legislature and his supreme court, exactly what the MAGAs want from their president. Today, he is a governor of a state where the majority may vote to keep abortion access and DeSantis cannot be trusted. Very suddenly, DeSantis could be voted out of office.

He has to choose between abiding by the majority of his voters or retaining his status as the dream MAGA candidate. DeSantis is the face of the vulnerable Republican.

That is a very good question. Given that DeSantis controls the legislature and his supreme court with an iron fist, he will have to decide whether Florida remains pro-choice (somewhat) or retain his perfect MAGA standing. He must do one or the other and he loses something either way.

He is not the only one. Many people running for the Senate this fall, Dr. Oz seems like one, J.D. Vance another fit into this category. It will be interesting.

****

[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

Comments

Comments are currently closed.