United States: Supporters of the abortion rights ballot measures across the country have raised nearly eight times what opponents are spending to try to halt the amendments on the November ballots.
The advantage could be small, however, and it may not give Florida an edge down the stretch in the most expensive of the nine statewide campaigns to ensure abortion rights are written into state constitutions.
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So far, campaign finance data compiled by the watchdog group Open Secrets and analyzed by The Associated Press tells a similar story in most of those states: As of reports aggregated Tuesday, backers of the amendment brought in nearly USD 108 million, compared with USD 14 million for their opponents, and also raised multiples of as much money and had multiples more donors.
However, in the final weeks before the November 5 elections, it’s not certain that this will result in further spending to push the measures in every state.
According to Kelly Hall, who is an executive director of The Fairness Project, which is providing money and other support for abortion rights groups in several of the campaigns, “The apparent differential on campaign finance reports does nothing to reassure me that we will not see large, late spending on these campaigns,” US News reported.
What are the impact of measures?
The measures would roll back restrictions in some states and provide protections in others in a few others’ constitutions, post SC’s 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
After the ruling, most of the GOP-controlled states banned or restricted most of their rights.
Some of the most Democratic-controlled ones provided at least some protections for abortion access.
The ballot measures could also encourage turnout in the elections. The money would then go to ads and elsewhere.
This puts campaigns with more money ahead on ads on TV, radio, and websites, by mailers and yard signs, and so forth, as well as in terms of other organizing power in things like door knocking.
Data collected by the media tracking firm AdImpact showed that big funding advantages so far have translated into far more ad buys in Missouri and Montana, US News reported.
The Open Secrets data also show abortion rights groups have raised more than USD 5 million in Missouri, and state filing shows millions in more contributions, including USD 1 million from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.