TAMPA, Fla. — At his first Tampa Bay area campaign stop of 2024, President Joe Biden hammered Republicans on an issue that his campaign hopes will be at the top of voters’ minds come November: abortion.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections in 2022, Democrats have made the issue a top campaign priority, promising to protect access to abortion while Republicans around the country work to restrict it.

Florida is case in point. Biden’s visit comes just a week before a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy is set to take effect.

“In America today‚ 2024, women have fewer rights than their mothers or their grandmothers had, because of Donald Trump,” Biden said. “I don’t think we’re going to let him get away with it, do you?”

The Biden campaign stop also comes just weeks after the state Supreme Court decided that Florida voters would decide on an abortion referendum in November.

If passed by 60% of voters, the amendment would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s Constitution. Biden’s team hopes the abortion ballot measure can boost the president’s chances of winning what could prove to be a crucial swing state in his reelection fight against former President Donald Trump.

(Currently, Biden’s odds in Florida don’t look great. Trump won Florida in 2020, and polls show Biden lagging behind Trump again this year.)

But for all the abortion talk inside Hillsborough Community College’s partially filled gymnasium, there was plenty else that others wanted to highlight about Biden’s visit.

In a statement, Florida GOP chairperson Evan Power downplayed abortion, saying Biden had come to Florida to talk about “manufactured issues.”

He said Floridians’ “top issues are immigration, the economy, and inflation, in all three areas Joe Biden has failed.”

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