Florida Turns the Tide for Social Conservatism Despite Massive Spending Gaps

Everyone expected President-elect Donald Trump to win Florida’s 30 electoral votes on Tuesday night. But the defeat of ballot initiatives that would have legalized abortion and recreational marijuana in the state flew in the face of conventional electoral wisdom. 

What’s more, the defeat of both Amendment 4 and Amendment 3 — ballot initiatives to legalize abortion up to viability and recreational marijuana, respectively — occurred despite massive spending by abortion and weed advocates. It’s no secret that money steers election results. But social conservatives won on both issues against well-funded goliaths who overwhelmingly outspent them. 

DeSantis’s Six-Week Abortion Ban Stands

In Florida, ballot initiatives must earn a supermajority of 60 percent support in order to pass. Amendment 4, the abortion initiative, failed to reach that threshold, receiving 57.2 percent of votes. Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Heartbeat Protection Act prohibiting abortion after six weeks, when an unborn child has a detectable heartbeat, remains the law of the land in the Sunshine State. 

The pro-abortion side raised $119 million in support of Amendment 4, outspending the opposition nearly 10–1. But Governor DeSantis’s active opposition to the initiative was a critical factor in its defeat. 

“DeSantis deserves special recognition for taking the abortion industry head on and setting a new standard for what it means to be a Pro-Life Champion as a state’s chief executive,” said National Right to Life President Carol Tobias.

Among other pro-life efforts, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) worked to educate voters about the risks of Amendment 4 through television ads and web content. The agency, which oversees the state’s abortion clinics, clarified the “reasonable and common-sense guardrails for medical professionals and their facilities” that would be overturned by the ballot measure. AHCA also explained the contours of Florida’s existing abortion law, which maintain exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormality, and the life and health of the mother and must be backed up with documentation. 

Since Dobbs v. Jackson returned abortion laws to the states’ jurisdiction, pro-life efforts lost whenever abortion was on the ballot — until Tuesday night. Following this election, pro-lifers can no longer be castigated as an unmitigated political liability. (RELATED: A Dozen Thoughts on a Historic Election) 

Florida Voters Defeat Marijuana Legalization

In addition to Tuesday night’s victory for the cause of life, quality of life also won in Florida. Voters rejected Amendment 3, which also failed to meet the 60 percent threshold. As with the pro-abortion initiative, Amendment 3 received massive financial backing and was defeated with the help of DeSantis.

Outspending the opposition by 5–1, initiative sponsor Smart & Safe Florida reported $153 million in contributions. Financial support for the proposal was provided mainly by cannabis corporations eager to gain access to the third most populous state in the nation. Cannabis giant Trulieve provided $145 million in support of the initiative, and marijuana companies Verano, Curaleaf, and Green Thumb Industries chipped in a few million dollars, too. 

Trulieve owns one in five medical cannabis dispensaries in the state and has opened more than 30 new plants in recent years. Had Amendment 3 passed, the medical cannabis network would have been perfectly poised to transition to recreational sales, bypassing the start-up costs that tend to strangle new dispensaries following state-level legalization. 

Though polling from this past spring hinted that 60 percent support for legal weed might be hard to stir up, Trulieve’s optimism was far from unfounded. Republican victories against pro-pot initiatives have been few and far between — and Amendment 3 was the most expensive legalization initiative to date with nearly four times the amount spent on California’s successful 2016 legalization efforts. 

“This is clearly one of Big Marijuana’s biggest defeats yet,” commented Dr. Kevin Sabet, former drug policy advisor to Clinton, Bush, and Obama and president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. Sabet continued: 

Floridians have dealt a remarkable blow to one of the largest commercial marijuana companies in the U.S. and others in the addiction industry. With the rejection of Amendment 3, Floridians have taken a firm stance against the dangerous drugs the pot profiteers tried to convince the public are harmless.

As with Amendment 4, DeSantis made his opposition to recreational marijuana clear from the start. “I’ve gone to some of these cities that have [cannabis] everywhere—it smells,” he said in a March press conference. 

Looking to the Future 

It feels good to win, especially on contentious issues like abortion and recreational weed. But the real legacy of this week’s victories will be proven in future election cycles. (RELATED: Trump’s Morning in America)

Though the cause of life won in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, pro-abortion measures passed in Missouri and Arizona, making abortion “broadly legal” in the states once again. Other states shored up existing protections for legal abortion. Pro-life advocates broke their losing streak, but abortion remains a divisive issue in state and national politics.

Regarding recreational marijuana, Florida’s refusal to legalize was echoed by voters in North Dakota and South Dakota, where legalization measures also failed by an even bigger margin. But if public opinion doesn’t shift meaningfully in the coming years, Florida could follow in the footsteps of Ohio, where recreational weed was legalized via ballot measure after a similar initiative had failed in 2015.

For now, however, social conservatives have scored meaningful victories in Florida, proving that life and quality of life don’t have to be losing issues.

Mary Frances (Myler) Devlin is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022. 

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