After a year of most prognosticators predicting that Amendments 3 and 4 would pass in Florida, they have now officially gone down in flames. For the uninitiated, the former was meant to legalize weed while the latter would have essentially legalized abortion until birth.
Gov. Ron DeSantis made it his chief mission this cycle to ensure those amendments failed, and with everything stacked against him, he has succeeded. As of this writing, 86 percent of precincts have reported, with just the blood-red panhandle left to report and Amendment 4 is only sitting at 57.4 percent while Amendment 3 has just 55.6 percent. Both needed to hit 60 percent to pass and as the panhandle comes in, those topline numbers will only go down.
With polls now closed in Florida —
Amendment 3 has failed.
Amendment 4 has failed.
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) November 6, 2024
Amendment 3 was supported by Donald Trump, which was a mistake, in my opinion. The thing was written by a weed company for one purpose: To give it a monopoly over the drug. That was the entire purpose. The amendment wouldn’t have even legalized home growing. It was a corporate giveaway, and the last thing a paradise like Florida needed was to legalize the stench of weed everywhere.
As to Amendment 4, there was a lot of thought that the abortion issue simply wasn’t winnable for Republicans. That was proven wrong tonight. Amendment 4 and an underhanded abomination meant to seem moderate when it was anything but. Now, life has been protected in Florida, and with that, DeSantis has become a legend. He never misses.
