Opinion Women can send Trump packing
The former president’s misogyny alone should spell the end of his political career.
From his Access Hollywood scandal eight years ago to his recent remark that he would use abortion bans to “protect” women whether they like it or not, Trump has consistently suggested women have no right to resist, no choice but to submit. His allies now insist that women must vote as their husbands tell them. Harris’s team has run with this, releasing an ad aimed at just such voters:
@couriernewsroom Watch this new pro-Harris ad.
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The variety of vindictive language is impressive. At Madison Square Garden, “Trump’s childhood friend David Rem referred to Harris as ‘the Antichrist’ and ‘the devil,’” the Associated Press reported. “Businessman Grant Cardone told the crowd that Harris ‘and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.’”
The anti-women venom is so central to Trump’s image that his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), made a practice of insulting childless, cat-owning women. Or it might have been that his past comments implying that women should remain in violent marriages, his condescension toward postmenopausal women, his support for a nationwide abortion “standard” (i.e., ban) and his repugnant comments about rape were a plus, not a negative, in Trump’s evaluation of him.
In a new low last week, Trump seemed to revel in the idea of Liz Cheney’s violent death: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” Cheney responded: “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
To put it plainly, Trump’s thrashing at the hands of a smart, strong Black woman — who ridicules his crowd size and calls him a loser — has utterly unnerved him. He practically foams at the mouth talking about her, no doubt unhinged by the prospect that he could very well lose the White House, this time to a woman, and face renewed prosecution.
If Trump is defeated, it will be due in large part to the work of millions upon millions of women who have registered and turned out in disproportionate numbers (first after Dobbs, then again after Harris entered the race). For the first time in decades, a Democrat has a shot at winning a majority of White women’s votes.
Harris is leaning into the issue of Trump’s hateful, violent rhetoric aimed at women. A last-minute ad recalled his vow during the 2016 race to punish women who get abortions (a statement he later walked back):
Republicans might have good reason to fear a tsunami of women voters ready to swamp the MAGA movement, given that “early voting numbers showed massive early turnout among women that could imperil their candidate’s path to victory,” the Daily Beast reported.
The highly respected Des Moines Register’s final poll, showing Harris ahead by three points in deep-red Iowa, suggests women are overwhelmingly shifting toward the vice president. (“Independent women back Harris by a 28-point margin, 57% to 29%” and “Senior women support her by a more than 2-to-1 margin, 63% to 28%,” noted The Post’s Matt Viser.) Few expect Harris to win Iowa, but the gender gap might well be the defining feature of the race.
Tom Bonier, a senior adviser at market research firm TargetSmart, has identified a few trends suggesting that a female backlash against Trump is already underway. In particular, senior women (who would have memories of pre-Roe America) are turning out in stronger numbers, especially in Pennsylvania, than in 2020. Early voters, including in key states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, are disproportionately women — in some cases, more so than in 2020.
In addition, since Harris became the nominee, women lead men among new registrants. (This has been true in many states ever since Dobbs.) Bonier found that in the past few months, there has been a four-point gender gap in favor of women among new registrants — a five-point margin swing from the same period in 2020. New voter registrations among Black women are up three points over the same period in 2020. In Georgia, the gender gap has increased nine points since 2020. And in North Carolina, the share of new registrations among women leads that of men by seven points, a six-point increase over the same period in 2020. (One reason Harris might overperform polls is that more young women have registered since Dobbs, taking them outside the “likely voter” screens.) Her outreach to GOP women such as Cheney may be paying dividends.
But a critical caveat is in order: Republicans, despite promises they would shift from Election Day to early voting, could still make up ground on Nov. 5. However, if late-deciding voters (including early voters) are breaking for Harris, as the campaign believes, Trump has only himself to blame. Threatening, demeaning and disrespecting women might excite some young, male occasional voters, but it might also unleash a tidal wave of women to lift Harris to victory. If so, it would be the most stunning display of political karma in memory.
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