Republicans are confident that 2018 might be the year of the “security mom,” when women who left the party during Donald Trump’s presidency begin to gravitate back to candidates who voice to their concerns about the material and physical security of their family.
Democrats, however, are hoping that if female voters who are still undecided, particularly those who are just starting to research their candidates, come to the conclusion that the Republican Party has no real plans to combat the effects of inflation and that the party’s position on abortion is too extreme in light of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the tide will turn back in their favour during this final election week.
On November 8, neither side can predict the result, but strategists from both parties are intensely focused on wooing those female swing voters who may once again decide control of the US House and Senate as well as numerous crucial governorship races.
More than 100 women were elected to the US House in 2018 thanks to the so-called “blue wave,” which was fueled by suburban and college-educated women who denounced Trump (most of them Democrats).
Exit polls that year showed a huge gender discrepancy, with 59% of women voting for Democrats and 40% for Republicans. It reflected the fervour of the post-Trump 2016 triumph women’s marches, the roiling #MeToo movement, and Democratic messaging that the GOP would threaten access to healthcare after the party had repeatedly tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
The situation now seems to be reversed. The GOP is in a far better position to attract female voters thanks to the spike in inflation, the erratic rise in gas costs, and the fact that Trump is no longer in the White House.
Interviews with voters in competitive states reveal that some women are definitely yearning for change that could harm the party in power as a result of lingering resentment over the disruptions brought on by the Covid-19 outbreak and economic concerns. To take over the House, Republicans need to gain a net of five seats, and they only need to gain one seat to flip the Senate, which is currently evenly divided.
Economy or abortion?
While many GOP strategists have argued in interviews that Democrats overplayed their hand by focusing too much on abortion rights in their ads when voters were more focused on the economic pain they were feeling from inflation, abortion is a key issue that helped Democrats close what had initially appeared to be a yawning enthusiasm gap with Republicans.
Democrats claim that people frequently fail to recognise that they have been promoting a dual narrative regarding abortion and the economy. However, the Republican National Committee’s director of communications, Danielle Alvarez, asserted that the opposition party made a mistake by focusing so heavily on abortion.
Democrats wake up every morning thinking about abortion and assume that women only vote from the waist down. Democrats erred in their calculations and are out of touch, she added, because women voters worry about the economy, public safety, and education.
A recent AWN poll done by SSRS revealed that likely voters in competitive districts were leaning toward the Republican Party, posing a problem for Democrats. According to the report, women are supporting Democrats less than they have in recent years. In a recent September-October AWN poll of registered voters, 59% of women supported the Democratic candidates in their district, up from 53% in the previous survey.
Additionally, Democrats are experiencing a decline in enthusiasm from the 2018 election. In the AWN study conducted in September and October, 27% of Democratic women and 11% of independent women who were registered voters described themselves as extremely enthusiastic about the election.
These results stand in stark contrast to an AWN poll conducted at the beginning of October 2018 which found that 41% of Democratic women and 35% of Republican women and 29% of independent women were extremely excited about casting ballots.
The term “security mothers” was originally used in the 2004 presidential election, when Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush were out campaigning and accused Democrats of being unprepared to deal with the threat of terrorism.
This time, the mix of issues that are most top of mind for many female voters – inflation and economic uncertainty, as well as the uptick in crime in some cities – are issues that favor Republicans, according to GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson. Abortion is clear exception, but polls have repeatedly shown that it is not the top issue for most voters, despite the millions of dollars of Democratic spending on ads casting GOP candidates as a threat to abortion access.
Soltis Anderson remarked, “It’s almost as if the’security mom’ is back, only this time the threat is domestic threats rather than threats from radical terrorism.” Female voters who might not otherwise have been as interested in voting for the GOP, she said, are giving Republicans a second look because of “that palpable sense of concern and fear about both economic and physical security.”