The Pew Research Center has an eye-opening survey about the attitudes of voters, broken down by gender. (HT: Digby) This is truly boggling:
Currently, 47% of men say they approve of how Trump is handling his job as president, with an equal share saying they disapprove (47%). By contrast, 32% of women say they approve of how Trump is handling his job as president; 63% say they disapprove. (My emphasis.)
Looking more broadly, over his first two years in office, Trump’s average approval rating was much higher among men (44%) than among women (31%). This 13-percentage-point gender gap is wider than for any of his recent predecessors, dating back to George H.W. Bush.
Holy moly. Are you kiddin’ me? Trump is down by 31 points with women! And women are overwhelmingly in favor of a bigger government that delivers more services than they are of a smaller government, in sharp contrast to men.
To me, this says some big things.
1. There must be a woman on the 2020 ticket, either at the top or as VP.
2. There needs to be an ENORMOUS push to get women out to vote, especially women of color.
3. We need to continue to address women’s issues strongly.
Now, if you’ve followed me, you know I am strongly in favor of Kamala Harris for president. But no matter who gets the nod, a woman on the ticket is an imperative. I have a daring goal:
65% of women voters voting for the Democratic candidate for president.
And let’s not forget this part, from a post by a Rutgers faculty member:
- Women vote in higher numbers than men and have done so in every election since 1964. In 2016, 9.9 million more women than men voted. Women have voted at higher rates than men since 1980. In 2016, 63.3% of eligible female adults went to the polls, compared to 59.3% of eligible male adults. Even in midterm elections, when voter turnout is lower among men and women, women vote in higher numbers and at higher rates than men.
- More women than men register to vote. Some 83.8 million women were registered to vote in 2016, compared to 73.8 million men.
If our candidate gets 65% among women, and they outvote men by the margin they’ve been doing, Trump is finished. And so is the Republican Senate majority.
The women of America, overwhelmingly, despise Trump. They are ready to hand us the victory next year.
Are we ready to accept it?