The group of female voters gives Mr. Trump an advantage

Vice President Kamala Harris prevailed over former President Donald Trump among female voters overall. However, that wall of support still has a gaping hole. Mr. Trump led his Democratic opponents by a large margin among white women without a college education in 2016 and 2020, although he struggled to attract other groups of women.

Republican presidential candidates won nearly three-fifths of working-class white women in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 races. Trump built an even bigger advantage by attracting two-fifths. 3 in both the 2016 and 2020 races, according to a post-voting survey conducted by Edison Research.

This group of voters has emerged as an important factor, potentially even deciding Trump’s third bid for the White House. Many of them do not have sympathy for the former president but are also disappointed in the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden, especially about inflation and the border issue.

They are heavily concentrated in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three states that were once “blue walls” where Democrats won every presidential election from 1992 to 2012. However, Trump once reversed the situation. in these three states in 2016, then President Joe Biden won them back in the 2020 election.

To win in the end, Ms. Harris does not need to win sympathy from all of them, but must also maintain a certain level of support.

“They’re really fed up with Trump and want change, but they’re also worried about it, they think the economy is actually better under Trump,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. . “They like the more moderate way Ms. Harris speaks and often calls for unity, and likes the Vice President’s sympathy. But they don’t feel like they understand her too well. They are really torn and feel uneasy. secure about your choices”.

Democrats have tried to attract this group with the voter contact program of the super political action committee American Bridge 21st Century. The group spent about $140 million trying to reach three million women, mostly white women without college degrees, in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin alone.

“Overall, aiming for ‘blue wall’ states is still the least thorny path for Ms. Harris to reach 270 electoral votes” and win in the end, said Bradley Beychok, co-founder of American Bridge 21st Century, said. “It’s pretty clear that women are the defining demographic this election season.”

American Bridge’s outreach campaign began in 2023, by regularly sending voters newspapers produced by an affiliated group. One of the group’s strongest messages is to remind voters of the unrest and upheaval that comes with Mr. Trump.

Beychok said the group’s principle is that even small achievements with this group of women can create a decisive turning point. “We are unlikely to reach 50.1% of the votes thanks to them, but if we try our best to pursue our program, it can still work,” he added.

In President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election victory, he only won votes from about a third of these women nationwide, but received support from about 45% of them in Michigan and Pennsylvania. and won a narrow majority in Wisconsin.

In contrast, in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only received about 40% of their support in all three states, contributing to her losing in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin with a total difference of 80,000 votes, thereby losing lost the White House seat.

Compared to Mrs. Clinton in 2016, Mr. Biden in 2020 made small but important improvements in Michigan and Wisconsin, contributing significantly to his victory in these two states. In Pennsylvania, he won the same level of support as Clinton but turned the tide by increasing the support of college-educated voters in Philadelphia.

As for Ms. Harris, the group of working-class white women in the three states above holds an even more important position, because she is struggling to attract male voters, especially white men without a degree. college, as well as black, Latino, and young males.

“Harris will have to do better with the women,” Lake asserted. “The vice president has to make up for the fact that she can’t perform as well with the men as President Biden did.”

“This group is wondering about a lot of things,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster. “They can consider very carefully until the last minute.”

William Frey, a demographer at the nonpartisan research group Brookings Metro, calculates that white women without college degrees are overrepresented among eligible voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. at least a quarter of the total electorate.

This rate is equivalent to the group of white men with manual labor, who were the strongest supporters of former President Trump. They are a larger group of voters than white men and women with college degrees or non-white men and women.

Thus, the group of white blue-collar women is large enough that even small changes in their choices or turnout could easily change the final outcome.

Trump’s recent campaign speech in Wisconsin offers the clearest look yet at how he is going after these voters. When it comes to undocumented migrants, he said “they will break into your kitchen”.

Trump did not say the immigrants would come through the front door or into the living room. He specifically emphasized that they would go into the kitchen, where many women, especially in working-class households, could easily imagine themselves alone and vulnerable. any.

This is just one of a series of messages from Trump and his allies that simultaneously stoke fears about undocumented immigrants, portraying Harris as too weak to protect people from criminals, At the same time, he emphasized that only he was capable of doing that.

Jackie Payne, founder and executive director of research group Galvanize Action, acknowledged Trump’s warnings have resonated with working-class white women, especially older ones.

“These women have clearly demonstrated the fear surrounding the border crisis. The safety and security of their families is a top priority for them and the border crisis is a threat,” Payne said. said.

But at the same time, according to Payne, for many women in this group, the intensity and ferocity of the former president’s attacks on immigrants are fueling worries that Trump is too divisive, leading to instability and chaos.

Payne said Trump is betting that voters who fear for their safety will be persuaded by his tough message, but that there will also be voters who will feel uncomfortable with the way he talks about people. other.

Another important weapon Trump has with working white women is the economy. Pollsters agree that Biden’s rising cost of living, despite a drop in inflation in recent months, has all but eclipsed the president’s economic achievements.

“If you are struggling and living on your monthly salary, the increase in prices of basic groceries will affect you and you will have to prioritize the economy more,” the pollster said. Republican opinion leader Jon McHenry said.

According to him, many white working women think that the US economy under Trump is better than under Biden. A national survey published in early October by the New York Times/Siena also reinforced the above statement. Among white women without a college degree, 54% said Trump’s policies helped them personally, while 53% said Biden’s policies hurt them.

These women may feel a stronger personal connection to Harris than Biden, McHenry noted, but such polling makes it clear they don’t believe “things will magically get better because Joe Biden has withdrawn from the election”.

“They are still affected by inflation. They are not satisfied with the border,” he said.

On the other hand, white women who work in manual labor are more likely to view former President Trump as a strong leader who can make good judgments in a crisis than Vice President Harris, according to survey results. by Gallup in October.

“They have conflicting views about Trump. On the one hand, he is older, chaotic, unstable, is dividing people, causing unrest in the community. But on the other hand, they think he is a strong men and they like such men,” Lake said.