Florida’s Supreme Court just greenlit a ballot measure to enshrine abortion in the state constitution—and simultaneously allowed the GOP’s new six-week abortion ban to become law. That makes the already-high stakes for this amendment even higher, as we discuss on this week’s episode of The Downballot. Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also talk about the death of New Jersey’s infamous “county line” and how the GOP managed to pick yet another whackjob candidate for yet another congressional special election.
Our guest this week is Daria Dawson, the executive director of America Votes, an organization that forms a crucial piece of infrastructure for the progressive moment. As Dawson explains, America Votes plays the role of “traffic cop” to ensure that its 400 partners don’t duplicate each other’s work—and that the right groups communicate with the right voters. She also emphasizes that Democratic candidates need to affirmatively tie themselves to ballot measures protecting abortion rights and says that voting rights are key to differentiating between the parties when talking to voters.
Subscribe to “The Downballot” on Apple Podcasts to make sure you never miss a show. New episodes every Thursday morning!
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
David Beard: Hello and welcome. I’m David Beard, contributing editor for Daily Kos Elections.
David Nir: And I’m David Nir, political director of Daily Kos. “The Downballot” is a weekly podcast dedicated to the many elections that take place below the presidency from Senate to city council. Please subscribe to “The Downballot” on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review.
Beard: What are we going to be covering in this week’s show, Nir?
Nir: For our weekly hits, we are discussing some good news/bad news out of the Florida Supreme Court on abortion rights. Then some unambiguously good news out of New Jersey, where a federal court just barred the use of a totally unfair system for electing candidates. And then we are onto a special election in Colorado where Republicans picked a very, very dodgy nominee for the seat held by former Republican Congressman Ken Buck.
Then on our deep dive, we are talking to Daria Dawson, who is the executive director of America Votes. If you’re not familiar with America Votes, they play an enormously important behind-the-scenes role as the traffic cop coordinating the work of more than 400 partners working to mobilize, turn out, and persuade voters all across the country in elections up and down the ballot. It is another fantastic episode. We have a ton of news to talk about, so let’s get rolling.
Nir: Well, Monday was a good news/bad news day from the Florida Supreme Court, and the bad news was really, really awful. The court overturned its own precedent, which had been in place for decades, that had said that the state constitution protects the right to an abortion and this ultra-conservative far-right majority said that, instead, “No, no; it doesn’t.” And they said that the GOP’s 15-week ban on abortion is constitutional under the state constitution. But it’s actually even worse because what this ruling means is that a six-week ban, in other words, a near-total ban on abortion, in the state of Florida will take effect in 30 days. And that means that Florida’s status as a major abortion care oasis in the south will come to an end and the consequences will be tragic.
Beard: And two points I want to make here is one, the Florida Supreme Court, which used to be a much more moderate court, obviously, before the dissent this year, has really become one of the most conservative far-right reactionary courts in the country and just proved it here with the complete disregard for its own precedence and for the total understanding of what Florida voters did when they passed a constitutional right to privacy decades ago. It’s just a really ridiculous ruling. And then secondly, as you mentioned, there are a lot of states in the south where Florida was by far the closest place where abortions were still available. If you think about particularly north Florida, states like Alabama and Mississippi. North Florida is not that far away. That’s someplace people can drive to and realistically still have an opportunity to get an abortion that is going to be closed off to them and they’re going to have to go much further afield to be able to receive this care that they need.
Nir: And getting back to what you were saying about this reactionary state Supreme Court, this all came about because not just Ron DeSantis, but also Rick Scott before him — the two of them were able to pack the court with hard-right ideologues for years and years. And let’s remember why this all was able to happen in the first place. In 2010, Rick Scott won the race for governor by 1%. In 2014, Rick Scott won the race for governor by 1%. In 2018, Ron DeSantis won the race for governor by four-tenths of a percent, all because of these ultra-super narrow elections. Republicans were able to just fill this once reasonable Supreme Court with complete partisan hacks. This is the consequence of losing all of these elections by such painfully narrow margins.
Beard: Yeah. And we’ve said Florida was a heartbreak after a heartbreak. I remember these results, the narrowness of them. Of course, there was also not on this list because there was a Senate race, but somehow there was an even closer race, which was Bill Nelson’s loss to Rick Scott, which made Rick Scott a senator. Of course, it’s heartbreaking that a state that has been so competitive has had this series of extremely, extremely narrow results and now Floridians and people across the south are facing the consequences of that.
Nir: But as I did say at the top of this segment, there was some good news by a bare four to three majority, the court did allow a ballot measure that would enshrine the right to an abortion to appear on the November ballot. Obviously, the stakes are super, super high. They were already high, but thanks to the other ruling that came down the same day, these decisions were both handed down on Monday.
Now, this ballot measure in November is going to be of just enormous, enormous importance because if it doesn’t pass, then this forthcoming six-week ban, which would essentially ban almost all abortions, will come into place and probably become permanent barring some sort of federal action.
Beard: And of course, remember what the Republican justices wrote in the original Dobbs decision, which was all this talk about returning abortion to the voters and to the states and all of that, and that was their whole sort of argument is that “Oh, all we’re doing is letting the people decide.” But here we go, and we see three out of the seven of Florida’s Supreme Court’s justices are more than happy to not let the people decide and to strike from the ballot this very straightforward amendment for very pretextual reasons because they don’t want the voters of Florida to vote on this. They just want to implement laws banning abortion.
And so, the fact that how close this was, I originally thought when I saw the news reports were just Florida Supreme Court allows this ballot measure to go onto the ballot. And I thought it was like, “Okay. Well, they did X, but they also did Y pretty cleanly.” But to see that it was four to three, which I only learned about the next day is crazy how close it came to not even being on the ballot, is how extremely far right this court has become.
Nir: The stakes are actually even higher than we’ve made them sound Beard. Mark Joseph Stern, writing for Slate, pointed out that six of the seven justices on the court appear ready to adopt the view that the state constitution recognizes “fetal personhood.” Essentially this cockamamie ultra-far-right idea is tied into a lot of Christian conservative theology that a fertilized ovum is somehow a person, and therefore it has the rights of a living human being like you or me or anyone listening to this show. And if that view winds up taking hold in a future case that would essentially prevent the legislature from ever legalizing abortion in any way ever loosening the laws and could even have the effect of making IVF illegal too, because in vitro fertilization, as we know, involves fertilized ova.
And so, if those cells have the rights of humans, then as we just saw with the Alabama Supreme Court, that risk invalidating the procedure in that state, Florida could wind up doing the same thing too. And really, they’re just ready to absolutely run amok. And in Alabama, at least the Supreme Court there was interpreting a state statute. Here, the Florida Supreme Court is on the verge of saying that the state constitution recognizes fetal personhood. I mean, what an absolute nightmare. Now it would be a nightmare for anyone trying to conceive using IVF, but it would also be an unbelievable nightmare for Republicans.
Beard: Yeah. And what it looks like it’s setting up is that this ballot measure will pass in November. And it needs 60% to pass in Florida. You need 60% in order for these ballot measures to come into effect. And we’ve seen obviously on very different issues, but we’ve seen other progressive ballot measures get that 60%. So, this is achievable, but obviously, it’s much tougher than just getting a simple majority.
But either this thing passes in November or barring some sort of change at the federal level, abortion will be banned in Florida for probably decades because you’ll have this far-right Supreme Court that will make it constitutionally impermissible to allow any abortions. And so, at the state level, you would need a very long evolution of replacing the justices on the court. Having pro-choice governors over a number of years, this is a very, very long process, if this ballot measure doesn’t pass in November.
Nir: It also points to something else, Beard, that you allude to, which is in Montana, that’s another state where the Supreme Court has recognized a right to an abortion in the state constitution. But there conservatives are also trying to take control of the court, but that court has elections. Florida’s court is appointed, and that’s why activists in Montana are also trying to pass an amendment to the state constitution there to enshrine abortion rights because the Florida Supreme Court just showed that you can’t take these precedents even if they’re decades old, you can’t take them to the bank, and that’s a very, very scary place to find ourselves that as we saw with the Dobbs case, a 50-year-old precedent, boom, gone just because the court winds up changing. It’s really terrifying.
Beard: Yeah. And as we’ve seen these far-right, justices are more than willing to go all the way to say whatever is in the Constitution actually bans abortion completely as we all knew was going to happen after Dobbs. This is not a situation where everyone’s like, oh, we should just let legislatures and voters decide. The far-right wants to ban abortion and say, “The constitutions of these states bans abortion.” And the only way to stop that is to literally write into the state constitutions as this Florida ballot measure does. You have to be so explicit. You have to basically say you can’t ban abortion in this state in order to prevent these justices from going in and making up a reason to ban abortion in the state.
Nir: Well, as we said, Florida voters will have the chance to undo the damage that the Supreme Court and the Republican-run legislature have done. It is going to be one of the biggest elections in the country. Definitely one of the most closely-watched abortion ballot measures. Like Beard said, it takes 60%, a supermajority, to pass it at the ballot box. It is the highest threshold anywhere in the country for this sort of amendment. I am sure we’ll be talking about this plenty more in the future.
And some genuinely good news though, we’re going to talk some more about New Jersey. On Friday, a federal judge barred election officials in New Jersey from printing primary ballots that group candidates based on whether they’ve received their local party’s endorsement and said they instead have to group candidates by the office that they’re seeking. That’s the same method used in every other state. All 49 states use this system called the office-block ballot.
The judge said the New Jersey system, which is known locally as the county line, violates candidates’ First Amendment rights by conferring an unfair advantage on certain other candidates, namely those who do get county endorsements and therefore get to appear in a special slot on these primary ballots. And that means that barring a reversal of New Jersey’s county line, which has underpinned decades of machine control, machine dominance of politics in the state is dead.
Beard: That’s obviously a huge victory for Andy Kim, who was one of the candidates who brought this original lawsuit and really, I think should be credited with this whole process at this point. But it’s an even bigger deal at this point for other candidates because, of course, Kim’s main rival, Tammy Murphy, dropped out. He’s on basically a glide path to the Senate next year, but a little bit downballot, there are some key races where this could really matter. Most notably, by far, I think is New Jersey’s 8th District. It’s a seat held by freshman representative Rob Menendez, the son of indicted Senator Bob Menendez.
Of course, the Menendez name isn’t quite what it used to be in New Jersey, so he’s facing a very well-funded primary challenge from Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla. Now, Menendez had the county line in all three counties, and that would’ve been a big leg up. Of course, he’s the incumbent and we see in other states that incumbency definitely helps you anyway, but the incumbency and the county line really, really makes it difficult to overcome even with sort of Menendez as a name overall in the state being in the mud. But now, that they’re going to be on more equal footing, I think Bhalla has a real opportunity here to take the younger Menendez down.
Nir: Yeah. The campaign has put out a couple of dueling polls in February. Menendez and his own internal had himself up on Bhalla, but then Bhalla released his own internal poll that showed a very, very different race had Menendez up just 44-41. I want to point out that Rob Menendez has not been charged with any wrongdoing in any of the indictments brought against his father, but Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, I think he put it very well. He said a while back, “It’s not a secret that Rob got to Congress only because of his dad’s influence. So, it’s fair to move on from Rob now because of that same influence. I understand it’s his dad, but it’s unreasonable to be linked together because of family only when it helps.” I absolutely agree. What Philip said, there’s just no dispute.
This seat, New Jersey’s 8th District, is a very blue district based in the Jersey City area in the northern part of the state. It came open last cycle, and as soon as Rob Menendez put his name forward, all other talk of any other possible candidates pretty much disappeared, and he easily won the primary and, of course, won the general election. And there is just no question that it was thanks to his father in machine-dominated Jersey politics, Bob Menendez before this most recent batch of indictments was an incredibly influential figure. And if you want that sort of influence to recede from Jersey politics, if you’re against that kind of machine politics, if you’re against the county line, then yeah, then it makes sense to say that you don’t need Rob Menendez either.
Beard: Yeah. And of course, Rob Menendez will still be on the ballot. He’ll have every opportunity as the incumbent congressman to speak to the voters of his district to talk about the constituents’ services that he’s provided over the past two years, and he could very well be reelected. But if he is, it will not be because his name was in a certain place on a ballot and his opponent’s name was on a different place on the ballot, it’s because more voters wanted him to be their congressman.
Nir: Now, one group that remains unaffected by this lawsuit, by the way, is the GOP, and that’s because Kim’s lawsuit alleged only that he had been harmed by the use of the county line in the Democratic primary. I mean, of course, that’s what he had to claim because he was a Democrat running in that primary.
And so, in response to an inquiry from some Republicans, the judge clarified that his order, barring the use of the county line, didn’t apply to the Republican primary. Several Republican candidates who appear to be on the outs with the GOP establishment in New Jersey tried to intervene to ask the judge to block the line for the Republican primary as well. The judge told them on Wednesday that they had moved to intervene too late, so they may be stuck with the line this year. They maybe perhaps could also get involved in the appeal of this case.
But as for that appeal, a bunch of the county clerks who are responsible for actually administering these elections and printing these ballots are trying to get the judge’s ruling to be overturned or paused, but their case is incredibly weak, and the judge even said so. Basically, no one is trying to argue that the judge was wrong on the merits, that this is a violation of constitutional rights. Instead, some of these county clerks are just trotting out the usual arguments you always see in these sorts of cases that it’s too late, they don’t have enough time to print ballots. It would be too confusing to change them, et cetera, et cetera.
But what the judge noted is the huge problem that these clerks face is that a whole bunch of other clerks have essentially dropped out of the case. Now they’ve said, “Okay, Your Honor, we’re going to comply with your ruling. We are going to print office-block ballots. We are not going to use the county law just like you told us.” And so, the judge wrote in a footnote that essentially said, “Good luck to the remaining clerks because how are you arguing that you can’t comply with my order when a whole bunch of your peers said, no problem.”
Beard: Yeah. It seems pretty unlikely to succeed. And really, the idea — I know it’s a change, but the idea that if you present someone with a ballot and it says president and then list the names of the candidates and then it says Senate and list the names of the candidates like office-block ballots do is going to be too confusing for people is just ludicrous to me. That’s what every other ballot practically in existence does. So come on, obviously, they can do this, and I would be surprised if it doesn’t result in all the counties having to do this.
One other topic that we wanted to hit briefly is Colorado’s 4th district where of course Ken Buck first retired and then resigned, forcing a special election to take place at the same time as the primary election will be taking place in Colorado. That, of course, was a real problem for Lauren Boebert, who was jumping districts from her old CO-03 district to the now-open CO-04 district because it was more Republican, and she wasn’t going to have to worry as much about a Democratic challenger.
The issue, of course, is that the parties were going to select candidates for this special election, and if one of her primary opponents became sort of the official Colorado GOP special election nominee for CO-04, it would give them a leg up in the primary where she was running against them. It would also allow them to raise extra money because they would be running two campaigns simultaneously.
But Boebert actually dodged a bullet in the end when the Colorado Republican vacancy committee unexpectedly picked former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez. He is not running in the election for the seat that would start in 2025; he’s just running in the special election to complete the final six months of this term. He beat out Logan County Commissioner, Jerry Sonnenberg, who is running for the full term, 51-46 in the sixth and final round of balloting. So, this was pretty close. Boebert had urged delegates to choose a placeholder to “Avoid giving an unfair advantage to any one particular candidate.” And of course, to avoid disadvantaging her is the key point here.
Now, good news for Boebert. The other issue here is that Greg Lopez is a piece of work. He is pretty well known around Colorado. In 1993, he and his wife were both cited in a domestic violence incident. There was an accusation of a DUI later that decade. And then in October 2020, he settled the lawsuit by federal prosecutors alleging that he left the Small Business Administration and then attempted to improperly influence the actions of the agency after he had left.
So, there’s a lot of legal backstory to Greg Lopez. He’s also, of course, this far-right nutbag who wants abortion to be outlawed without exception, says that climate change isn’t caused by human behavior, and says that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. So, all of that’s more expected for the far-right nutbag stuff that we see in these sorts of seats. But he’s got a pretty controversial past. The seat is almost certainly far too Republican to make for a competitive race, but I would be interested to see what the results end up being when we get these special election results. The Democrats have a first-time candidate, but someone who’s got experience as a congressional and campaign staffer. So, I could see a Democratic overperformance here because the Republican is so right-wing.
Nir: And there is one thing that you might actually know about Greg Lopez. Beard, you kind of downplayed that domestic violence dispute with his wife. He was accused of pushing her when she was six months pregnant. And he ran for governor a couple of times much more recently. Totally failed campaigns both times. But there was this clip of a reporter asking him that went kind of viral that said essentially, how do you square being pro-life with the fact that you were accused of shoving your wife when she was six months pregnant? Obviously, pretty hard to come up with a good response to that. Not a good look. I agree. I can’t see how Democrats actually flip this seat, but I think that Republicans are probably going to wind up sweating it a little bit more than they’d like to.
Well, that does it for our weekly hits. Coming up on our deep dive, we are talking with Daria Dawson, the executive director of America Votes, which is the hub of the progressive movement. They play traffic cop for more than 400 partners across the country who are all trying to mobilize, persuade, and turn out voters for the 2024 elections. It is another great discussion, so please stick with us after the break.
Joining us on “The Downballot” this week is Daria Dawson, who is the executive director of America Votes, which is widely known as the coordination hub of the progressive community with over 400 partners across the country. Daria, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Daria Dawson: Thank you all so much for having me. This is a very exciting time to be on your show. As you mentioned, I am the executive director at America Votes. Just came into this role in January, so about two months in, and we just finished celebrating our 15th state summit last week here in DC and that was an exciting time for about 2,000 of our partners from nearly 47 states to come in and strategize, mobilize, connect, and get ready for the upcoming elections.
Nir: Well, that sounds absolutely amazing, and I definitely want to hear more about that, but why don’t we start with a little bit of background on America Votes — and, especially, since you mentioned that you started recently in the role as executive director, how you got involved with the organization and how you came into your current role.
Dawson: Sure. So, I could tell you about America Votes. As you mentioned, we are the permanent coordination hub for the progressive movement. We have about 400 partners across our network in about 20 plus states and also national partners who work in multiple states. We bring our partners together to think through and strategize how we mobilize and turn out key coalitions to win elections up and down the ballot. Winning elections is our way of looking at a tool in a toolbox to continue to expand democracy in this country.
We see elections as a way for our partners to continue to do the advocacy work that they need to in order to achieve their mission goals. So, we’re going on 20 years now. We have pretty much anyone you could think that is about moving progress, moving forward in this country, progressive policies. We have organizations representing conservation groups, choice groups, groups that are focused on constituency engagements like NAACP, Somos Votantes, the Latino Victory Fund, our groups representing our Asian American constituencies.
We have groups representing LGBTQ+ groups. We’re just a big coalition that is focused on, if you look at that Venn diagram, how do we win elections? And it’s not just focused on the top of the ticket, but any election pretty much from the top of the ticket, of course, nationally, but also all the way down to county commissioners, whatever it is, that election that is going to impact progressive policies, progressive power, our coordination, our table works together in implementing those direct voter contact plans to basically engage, reinforce, assess those top messengers that can connect with those constituencies. People of color, women, youth, all the multifaceted things that we represent. So, it’s a great time for, as we look at 2024 for me to, as I mentioned earlier, come in as the role of executive director.
I’ve been at America Votes since 2019 going into the 2020 election. I came in as a national political director. And I came in during the time where 2020, I think we all think about where we were at that time and being in that moment, whether or not 45 was going to win reelection and just trying to figure out what do we do to protect democracy in this country. For me, I took on the challenge of ensuring that the coalition was reflective of groups that we needed to talk to the voters that we needed to talk to trusted messengers, and what we call the partners of our organization. So, making sure that our table and our partners reflected America and bringing in those groups that could represent and speak for and advocate on behalf of those key members of the coalition. I’ve been doing this work for quite some time.
I like to say I got my bones in the labor movement. I’ve worked for two big labor organizations, AFSCME and SEIU. I started my career in the state legislature in my home state, Florida, and have worked on many national campaigns. I’ve done some presidentials. I’ve done two, three, four presidentials now that I think about it, some on the actual campaigns and some through the labor unions. I’ve worked on Capitol Hill. I’ve been an advocate for working families on Capitol Hill.
So, I’ve done a little bit of everything when it comes to being in the political ecosystem. But I think the thing that has really always stood out for me is how we make sure that we are in the right position to elect the right officials for progress and also be in the position to hold them accountable when they need that extra support to pass those policies. I grew up during a time, as I mentioned — I’m from Florida. I was raised by two educators who really raised me on the saying that, regardless of what happens in this country, regardless of what happens in your life, voting is your voice, and it is the only voice that people actually care about. You could protest, you could yell, you could scream, you could be unhappy with what’s happening, but unless you vote, it’s not going to really matter. So that is something that has always been instilled in me and which is why it’s not a coincidence. I think that I am leading the coalition at this moment.
Beard: Now, coordination is obviously really important, but it can also be difficult to pin down. So, I think it’d be great if you could give our listeners an example of how this might work and maybe if you have a specific state or example in mind about what exactly you’re doing to bring these folks together and then get them in front of voters.
Dawson: Yeah. That is a really quick question, Beard. So, consider America Votes as that infrastructure that helps set up the plan and thinks through what’s the number, the win number, the number of voters that we need to engage, and who we need to engage to win this election? How many times do we need to engage them? Do we do multiple passes and canvassing, multiple phone calls, multiple pieces of mail? What is it going to take to really resonate with these… I hate the word targets, but with these groups of voters in order to turn them out.
A good example that I could give you is the Wisconsin spring election of 2023, where, in setting the plans, we coordinated, we worked with our partners. And the coordination to your question is pretty much about planned traffic cop and making sure that we don’t re-duplicate efforts in being really smart about who engages with the particular precinct or who engages with the particular constituency, and making sure that we’re not running into each other, running over each other.
So, in Wisconsin, for example, our coalition, the plan, our coalition knocked over 535,000 doors and made 678,000 phone calls. The coalition also sent about 4 million text messages and sent over 2 million pieces of mail. So, it was the America Votes team in Wisconsin it pretty much set the plan. If we’re looking out what turnout is going to be anticipated turnout, and this is the number of voters that we need to turn out and we know that we need to connect with them this many times, what does that mean for how many door knocks? How many passes do we do? How many pieces of mail should we send, how many phone calls, text messages, et cetera? And then you work with the coalition to figure out who’s in the best position to message to those voters.
If we’re talking about a young voter in Wisconsin in the post-Dobbs era, all right, planned parenthood, what you got? How can we connect with the voters on the college campuses? We’re talking about climate change and conservation voters; where are you? These are the messages that are going to resonate with these particular voters, and we need you to be in a position we will basically help you with when it comes to the tools and the data. That’s a really big piece of when we say the coordination of tracking this with the data and making sure that everyone can see who’s doing what, as I said, to really prevent everyone from running into each other, playing the traffic cop is basically what it means to be to coordinate.
Nir: I want to drill down on one specific thing that you mentioned a moment ago, Daria. So, last year you were also involved in the off-year elections in Virginia and Kentucky, and in both of those states, reproductive rights were a major issue just as it was in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election earlier in the year. I’m really curious to know what your takeaways were in terms of how you engaged with voters on the issue? And especially because in Kentucky, it was such a surprise to see Andy Beshear really center that issue in such a conservative state, and yet it obviously worked for him. And Virginia things played out of course differently. You didn’t have a statewide race, you had legislative elections taking place on the district level. So, I’d love to hear more about how you messaged around that issue and how you connected with voters.
Dawson: Yeah. I appreciate you bringing up Kentucky and Virginia and look, as we saw, and pretty much since June 2022, abortion is still a winning issue and it really is about the candidates and other messengers making the connection between a ballot initiative and or a particular race candidate to abortion, right? So, in Virginia, Kentucky, we do have a relationship with those tables that we play pretty much a supporting role when it comes to providing the data for those partners to do the work.
But I could also talk about Ohio, which is actually one of the key states in our network. The staff in Ohio is America Vote staff, where there were two ballot initiatives I think people sometimes forget. There was a ballot initiative to basically change the threshold for a ballot initiative to pass. So in Ohio, our partners, again, as I mentioned, Wisconsin really set the plan on how to win this ballot initiative.
And so, it was a vote ‘no’ campaign in August, and it was really an opportunity to educate voters on voter restrictions, right? Because at that point, the state legislature had already said that they weren’t going to do any elections in August because August is a very bad time to have an election. It’s the summertime. We don’t want to waste the taxpayers money. But wait, abortion is on the ballot in November. So, we’re going to do the surprise spot summer election to restrict what we already said, restrict the voter’s choice and ballot initiatives. So, it was really an opportunity.
The message for that point was to just educate voters on how, once again, people in power are trying to restrict your voice. So that was the messaging that we worked with, that partners in setting for the August special election. And there was absolutely a way to connect that to abortion because people recognize, and there was actually education on like this is because they want to lower your threshold and your voice for the abortion ballot initiative that’s going to be on the ballot in November.
So those were both opportunities to continue to engage and educate voters. And that is something that America Votes really centers itself around is, like, we’re not a campaign that ramps up and ramps down like most campaigns do. We are a permanent infrastructure and looking for ways to not only just mobilize voters, but utilize special elections, spring elections off-year elections as opportunities to educate and connect with and be that brand, not necessarily America Votes, but our partners of the coalition to be that brand that voters can recognize regardless of what actual issue is on the ballot.
Nir: Daria, I’m so glad that you mentioned the Ohio ballot measures. We discussed them a ton on “The Downballot,” both the August 1 and the November 1 elections, and, of course, there will be similar measures on the ballot in many states this year. We talked about Florida at the top of the show, likely going to be in Arizona, a number of other swing states, and even red states as well.
I’m curious to know, obviously in Ohio, Issue 1, the abortion ballot measure, was the only thing on the ballot in November. But of course this year these abortion ballot measures are going to be on the ballot alongside every other possible election up and down the ballot. And so, I’d like to know how that changes, if at all, the dynamics of your campaign and how you approach voter engagement.
Dawson: I think that is a very excellent question. I think a good page that we could take out of what abortion means on the ballot when there are other things on the ballot, was Michigan in 2022. And while you had the top of the ticket there being all the constitutional officers, including the gubernatorial, right? But there was absolutely excitement about that ballot initiative, the abortion ballot initiative.
And I do think particularly in this time where for those of us who’ve been doing this work for a really long time, that the national narrative helps set the political landscape when it comes to ballots across the country. I do think one thing that we cannot take away from is the big impact on the Supreme Court, overturning Roe v. Wade, and what that actually means to everyone in this country, whether or not you are personally pro-choice. I think people have resoundingly said that you do not want the government involved when it comes to what a woman decides to do with her body.
But I want to stop short of saying that with abortion on a ballot, say in Florida, my home state, it is an automatic win for all the candidates on the progressive side, on the Democratic side because you have to, in a smart way, connect yourself to the ballot initiative. And I think that is what Governor Whitmer and the other constitutional officers and the state representatives running, and the senators were running to get to the trifecta to do things that they’re doing now, which is pro-family.
And I can’t think of the — I don’t want to misframe it, but it’s basically passing laws in Michigan that will allow for IVF and all those other things that folks did not really think about when Roe was overturned. So, I think there has to be, yes, it’s helpful because it is going to energize people to come out and vote for that ballot initiative or for that particular issue.
But unless there is a connection to the candidates and naming the fact that I support this ballot initiative, I support a woman’s right to choose, or even the organizations at the table of basically like there’s an opportunity for us to tie abortion into other fundamental rights. Here’s a way to tie abortion to voting rights and to LGBTQ and to advocacy. And there has to be that connection. It’s not going to be automatic that the voters will just be like, “Oh, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a Democrat on this ballot.” That’s not going to be automatic. There has to be a way that those candidates tie themselves to being on the side of choice, on the side of being pro-abortion, in order for that connection to become clear to the voters.
And you mentioned this earlier about Andy Beshear and that direct-to-camera ad basically calling out Daniel Cameron to that young child’s circumstance, one of the most effective ads because they were able to call out and tie Daniel Cameron to abortion. Unless other candidates and campaigns are going to do that, we can’t just say that abortion being on the ballot is going to automatically be a win. There has to be some concerted and intentional effort for the candidates, for the campaigns, for the organizations to elevate that and make the connection.
Beard: Now, one thing that there has been a ton of ink spilled on in the lead-up to this election is the potential for voters of color to be defecting from Democrats and potentially large numbers if you believe some of these polls out there. So, in the face of this, how is America Votes looking to engage with these voters, both in terms of persuading folks to vote for Democrats and turning out maybe voters who aren’t very enthused?
Dawson: Boy, that good old enthusiasm question. Look, I will say, and if your listeners can’t tell a Black woman, I do think that no one should be taken for granted by any particular type of party. However, Black people in particular, Black women and Black men, contrary to what you might believe, are the largest supporting blocks of the Democratic Party. They’re also the most liberal across the board when you talk about issues.
And if we could go back to Ohio really quickly, exit polls say that 88… in the abortion ballot initiative in Ohio, 88% of Black men voted in favor of abortion being protected in Ohio; 88% of Black men were the largest supporters of that ballot initiative according to exit polls. So, I think we have to step away from where exactly people of color, voters of color, are when it comes to registration and think about the issues that they care about.
And I think that’s where the coalition of America Votes steps into, because we’re not for a particular party, we’re not for a particular candidate, right? We’re about the issues and being on the side of the candidate who is right, honor the issues, right? So, there is a lot of opportunity. We’re in April more than 200 days away. There’s a lot of opportunity now to educate voters on who is right on the issues that you care about. And that is why it is best. We feel it is best to leave it to our partners when it comes to the messaging of who to connect with those voters because it is our partners who are working through the polling and doing the focus groups and doing the homework and the research to really connect with the voters that they represent when it comes to their advocacy work. So, I do think when it comes to issue messaging, there is still time for that.
What I will also say is as an organization that is very pro-voting rights and very pro-democracy, that is basically the foundation of how to make the differentiation between one side and the other. And it’s a no-brainer. There is one party out there that is absolutely pro-voting rights and absolutely pro-democracy. And there is one side that is not.
So, I think particularly when it comes to Black voters, when we’re thinking about the map of 270 and other races that are going to be in those states, that is Georgia, that is North Carolina, that is Pennsylvania, that is Michigan. We have to talk about the party and the candidates that are going to be about supporting your choice and not whether it is choice or whether it’s another issue, but even more so when it comes to the party that’s right now just trying to be restrictive.
And let’s not forget about the fake electorates and all those things that happened in 2020 where these candidates are now actually running for office, right? And right now, you have legislators that are passing voting restrictions that are basically making it harder for people to vote. And again, I’m a Black woman raised in the South. I understand what that means when you’re trying to put voter restrictions on. I understand what it means when you’re trying to limit polling locations. I understand what it means when you’re trying to say that the early vote cannot happen on the Sunday before the election. I hear that very loud and clear, and I know other Black voters and voters of color hear that too. So, I think it’s just an opportunity for members of our coalition to actually educate voters, educate those that we need to engage and make that connection to the candidates that are going to be on the ballot in the fall.
Nir: We have been talking with Daria Dawson, the executive director of America Votes. Daria, before we let you go, I would love it if you would tell our listeners where they can find out more about America Votes, where they can follow your organization online, and if you’re on social media, where folks can follow you as well.
Dawson: Absolutely. So americavotes.org, please visit us. We just revamped our website in honor of our state summit which I mentioned earlier. So, it’s really cool graphics, designs, and actually updated pictures. And also, you could also go there to get a snapshot of all the partners who are a part of the coalition, which I think is very important to understand that here at America Votes, it’s our partners that do the work and we are intentionally supporting them in those efforts when it comes to the data and the tools and the resources to get the work done. And then of course, we’re on all the social platforms X, if it’s called Twitter or X or whatever it’s called, it’s @americavotes. And then I am also on Twitter @daria, my first name, D-A-R-I-A, half of my middle name, C-H-A-R-L-E-I, C-H-A-R-L-E-I. So it’s Daria Charlei on X.
Nir: Well, Daria, thank you so much for coming on “The Downballot” this week, and best of luck in November.
Dawson: Thank you all so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure. And yeah, I appreciate it. So super excited about this interview and about 2024.
Beard: That’s all from us this week, thanks to Daria Dawson for joining us. “The Downballot” comes out every Thursday everywhere you listen to podcasts. You can reach out to us by emailing thedownballot@dailykos.com. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to “The Downballot” on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review. Thanks to our editor Drew Roderick, and we’ll be back next week with a new episode.