President Biden to talk abortion at Tampa campaign stop

TALLAHASSEE — When President Joe Biden comes to Tampa on Tuesday, he’ll be talking about the issue that has reinvigorated his campaign’s presence in Florida: abortion.

Biden is coming to Florida just a week before the state’s six-week abortion ban will take effect. In an email, his campaign highlighted concerns about how the new law will affect access to abortion for women across the southeastern United States.

It said Biden will make remarks in Tampa “on the stakes of this election for reproductive freedom across the entire country.”

Florida voters in November will get to decide on a proposed constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights. The Biden campaign has seized on that ballot issue, releasing a memo earlier this month calling Florida “winnable.” The campaign has also released advertisements attacking former President Donald Trump for his role in appointing justices that overturned Roe v. Wade, which had provided federal protection for abortion.

“While Donald Trump continues to brag about unleashing these extreme and dangerous bans, President Joe Biden is running to restore reproductive freedom,” Morgan Mohr, the Biden-Harris campaign senior adviser for reproductive rights, said in an email Friday. “Since the overturning of Roe, whenever reproductive rights have been on the ballot, they have won, and this November will be no different.”

Biden’s odds in Florida are still doubtful, as Florida has swung to the right and as polls show Biden trailing Trump in the state. Republicans also have a steady lead over Florida Democrats when it comes to voter registration numbers.

But Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez told reporters in early April: “We’re going to compete — and we’re going to make sure that Donald Trump has to compete — in the state of Florida.”

As Trump’s stance on abortion has come under fire, he has said abortion should be left to the states, despite previously suggesting he would support a federal ban with rape and incest exceptions.

Biden was most recently in Tampa in February 2023, when he came to Florida to talk about health care costs and tout his accomplishments.

Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau reporter Lawrence Mower contributed to this report.