Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy certainly made interesting use of his time at the podium during a Wednesday night hate rally for Donald Trump. While Trump stood beside him making eyes at the crowd, Kennedy opted to attack Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You know what our Democratic friends have done for him? Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to impeach him. I don’t mean any disrespect, but it must suck to be that dumb!
Let’s roll the tape.
Of course, Speaker Pelosi isn’t dumb. But the GOP continues to lose elections and lag in polls, due in large part to suburban women abandoning them in droves, as The Wall Street Journal explores in an editorial detailing “The Anti-Republican Trend” that was very evident during Tuesday’s elections.
Worse than the defeats for Republicans is the voting trend, which continued the suburban losses of 2017 and 2018 that cost them control of the U.S. House. In Virginia they could in the past overcome their deficits near Washington, D.C., with gains downstate. But now their losses extend to the suburbs around Richmond and the state’s southeast.
It wasn’t just Virginia, of course.
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin was crushed in the Louisville (99,000 votes) and Lexington (36,000) metro areas. Mr. Bevin lost the Lexington area by only 10,000 in 2015 and around Louisville by 38,000. But turnout statewide this year was up about 50% from 2015, as Democrats showed again that they are highly motivated in the Trump era.
This turnout trend has now continued for three Novembers, and Republicans who try to explain it away are fooling themselves. The GOP under Mr. Trump is losing more college-educated suburban voters, especially women, than it is gaining rural voters or working-class former Democrats.
Suburban women know about these hate rallies, and they showed up on Election Day to make their voices heard. A GOP operative issued an ominous warning about the erosion in Republican support in the suburbs.
“Republican support in the suburbs has basically collapsed under Trump,” Republican strategist Alex Conant said. “Somehow, we need to find a way to regain our suburban support over the next year.”
Need more? Renowned pollster Ann Selzer, who conducted a national poll for Grinnell College just last month, pointed to a stunning data point in her polling.
Suburban women especially appear motivated to make their disapproval felt: Eighty-eight percent of suburban women said they would definitely vote in the 2020 presidential election, 10 points higher than voters overall.
“This to me is striking not so much in that they are aligning against President Trump, but the degree to which they are aligning against President Trump,” Selzer told The Hill. “That is sort of the pin in the hand grenade. They have the opinion and they’re more likely to vote.”
It would appear that the senator from Louisiana was unaware of the ill effects of vitriol and hate … until Thursday morning, that is, when Kennedy walked back his remarks—sort of.
REPORTER: You don’t think those comments were disrespectful at all, about the most powerful woman in the history of the United States?
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: I didn’t mean them as disrespectful, I didn’t mean them as disrespectful at all. If you know, if people think they’re disrespectful, this is America, you’re entitled to your opinion.
Kennedy got one thing right: Americans are entitled to their opinions. Thus, If misogyny and childish insults continue to be the Republican strategy for 2020, it seems obvious that it will drive voters with strong opinions—particularly suburban women—to turn out and pull the lever for Democrats next November.