Yeah, Jacob — not a lot of voters are going to stay home in a swing state in a presidential election with an abortion ballot measure (maybe) on the ballot.

—Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538

DeSantis is asked about how he'll win over pro-choice voters in states like Arizona and, while he doesn't give an actual strategy, he says he's already done it in Florida, citing his big victory in 2022. But as many have written, Florida's Republican wave last year was just as much if not more a function of Democrats just staying home altogether rather than voting for DeSantis.
-Jacob Rubashkin, 538 contributor

Dana Perino is asking about abortion policy. In an August survey conducted by SurveyMonkey for 19th News, only 15 percent of Republicans said that abortion should be illegal in all cases. A majority of Republicans said that abortion should be legal if the patient’s life is endangered (71 percent), in cases of rape or incest (68 percent), if the patient’s health is endangered (55 percent), or if the fetus is not expected to survive (52 percent). Only 19 percent of Republicans said abortion should be legal for women who do not wish to be pregnant.
—Analysis by 538

DeSantis just bragged that the Florida Democratic Party is in ruins and that he turned Florida into a red state. I took a closer look at this question a couple weeks ago, though, and found … not a lot of evidence that DeSantis himself is responsible for the reddening of Florida.

—Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538

Outside of the Trump-critical wing of the Republican primary — featuring Christie and Hutchinson, with major appearances by Pence — most of the presidential field has tip-toed around Trump, careful not to attract his ire. But in the last couple weeks, some candidates have started taking on Trump more directly, jeopardizing their prospects as his running mate.

Trump was already unlikely to name a challenger as his VP pick. Of the 19 unique Democratic and Republican presidential nominees since 1972, only four selected a running mate who had run against them in the same year’s primary. And Trump is even more prickly about loyalty than his recent predecessors.

Last week, we analyzed the tweets of the six highest-polling Republican candidates (other than Trump) in 538’s national polling average. Until recently, DeSantis had hardly acknowledged the former president, mentioning Trump just once since Jan. 6, 2021. But that changed last week, when DeSantis published three critical tweets about Trump. Scott, meanwhile, has largely kept his social media tone neutral toward Trump, but we did see a rare direct criticism on the stump last week, when he said Trump’s suggestion that he’d seek a compromise on federal abortion legislation was the wrong approach. Haley’s tone toward Trump shifted earlier this summer, from cautious to directly critical.

Tonight could tell us whether these recent instances of criticism are the beginnings of a new trend in which the GOP field actually tries to topple the front-runner.

—Analysis by Leah Askarinam of 538