The Women Who Gave Trump the White House Could Tip the Midterms to Democrats
When Donald Trump this week publicly disparaged his former aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman as a “dog,” he crystallized again the belligerent style and volatile behavior that has exposed Republican candidates in November to the risk of a crushing backlash among women. The most important unanswered question for the midterm election may be how far that backlash extends among the women whose preponderant support keyed his victory in the first place.
Trump’s tempestuous presidency has widened every divide in American politics: race, religion, generation, geography, gender, and education. All of these contrasts loom large over the November elections. Democrats see their best House opportunities in white-collar suburban communities around the major metropolitan areas, which are typically younger and more racially and religiously diverse. Republicans hope to build a firewall in districts well beyond the urban centers that are predominantly white, older, more blue-collar, and more uniformly Christian in religious preference.
Gender is a big wild card. In this week’s national , college-educated and non–college-educated white men, as well as minority men, were considerably more likely than women in the same groups to say they like Trump’s policies. Likewise, in an last month, men in all three categories were much more likely than women to say they were proud of Trump’s behavior as president; women were more likely than men to say they were embarrassed.
