Vice President Harris is trying to maximize turnout among female voters in the final days before the election, hoping the critical voting bloc can get her over the finish line.
While there has been much talk in the final days of the campaign about Harris’ supple support among men, Democrats argue that women have a chance to boost Harris. They point to the role of the voting bloc in securing Democratic victories in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections.
But Republicans remain skeptical that women, particularly suburban women in swing states, will be a backup for Harris, citing concerns about the economy.
“Kamala Harris is well-positioned to win this election because of women,” said Jessica Mackler, president of EMILY’s List, a group dedicated to electing Democratic women who support abortion rights.
On Wednesday, Harris’ campaign criticized former President Trump for defending his September comments when he promised to be a “protector of women.” During a rally on Wednesday, Trump said he contradicted his advisers’ advice not to exploit such language.
“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I will protect her. I will protect them from the incoming migrants. I will protect her from this.’ “Foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things,” Trump told his supporters in Wisconsin.
Harris responded to Trump’s comments on Thursday, calling them “the latest in a series of revelations from the former president about how he thinks about women and their agency.”
“It’s actually very offensive to women when they don’t understand their agency, their authority, their right and their ability to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies,” the vice president told reporters in Wisconsin.
And earlier this week, the Harris campaign released an ad starring actress Julia Roberts encouraging women to vote for the vice president even if their husbands supported Trump.
“In the only place in America where women still have the right to vote, you can vote however you want. And no one will ever know,” Roberts says in the spot.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign sought to amplify comments from Harris campaign representative Mark Cuban, in which he told ABC’s “The View” on Thursday: “You never see.” [Trump] about robust, knowledgeable women.”
Trump’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt linked Harris to the comments in a statement to The Hill.
“Kamala Harris’ campaign believes women who support President Trump are weak and stupid, and she objects to President Trump’s desire to protect women, men and children from migrant crime and foreign adversaries,” Leavitt said.
“Women deserve a president who will secure our country’s borders, drive violent criminals from our neighborhoods, and build an economy that helps our families thrive – and that’s exactly what President Trump will do,” she continued.
Politically, in the campaign’s final salvos, Harris and her allies have sought to improve access to abortion and reproductive health care by tying the issues to her campaign’s theme of “freedom.”
Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who sued the state after she said she was denied an abortion even as she struggled with pregnancy complications, joined her husband in speaking at Harris’ own closing argument on the Ellipse outside the White House Tuesday.
Harris herself addressed the issue in her remarks, telling her supporters she would “restore what Donald Trump and his hand-picked Supreme Court justices have taken from the women of America.”
“Kamala Harris delivered this really clear message about contrast, particularly around the issue of reproductive freedom,” Mackler said.
The Democrats point to their previous successes on this issue. In 2022, Democrats have largely blunted the expected red wave in most of the country by focusing on abortion access following the overturn of the Roe v. Wade ruling. The impact was also felt a year later in Virginia’s off-year elections, in which Democrats took control of the state’s General Assembly.
In 2024, Harris and the Democrats will bind Trump to bans and restrictions on the procedure at the state level.
“What we’ve seen in every election since the Dobbs decision is that women are motivated on the issue of abortion and this election is fought and won on the issue of abortion,” Mackler said.
The issue of access to abortion seems to be of particular concern to juvenile women. Accordingly a KFF survey In the survey released earlier this month, about four in 10 women under 30 said abortion was the most significant issue of their choice.
Republicans, however, say abortion isn’t the only factor affecting the way women will vote in November.
“I don’t think they want to be defined as abortion voters,” said Kristin Davison, a statewide GOP strategist. “Of course they care about the problem, but it’s not their main reason because they probably have bills to pay and crime is increasing in their Atlanta suburb and they’re not sure Harris is up to the task of solving the problem.”
Republicans also point to female swing voters in the suburbs and assume they could vote against Harris on the economy.
“The biggest issue for suburban women is the economy,” said Lauren Zelt, a national Republican strategist. “The Harris campaign is working hard to make sure this is about reproductive issues, and understandably so. But at the end of the day, women are the key financial decision-makers for their families, and they will vote with their wallets.”
But many Democrats say the two issues are fundamentally linked.
“I don’t see abortion and the economy as separate issues,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, the executive director of the Women’s March. “When we talk about the economy, I don’t think we can separate the issue of reproductive freedom from concerns about the economy, given the large number of female heads of households, primary breadwinners and working women.”
Others have pointed to impoverished messages from Republicans toward women and pointed to overly masculine messages from figures like Elon Musk.
“This bromance and masculinity stuff is bordering on the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable,” former 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Tuesday.
“You have affiliated PACs running ads about calling Kamala the ‘C’ word, or speakers at Madison Square Garden, you know, referring to her and her ‘pimps,'” continued she continued, referring to a video posted on the social platform X Musk’s super PAC calls Harris a “communist.” The video was deleted by the group on Monday.
“That’s not the way to win women. “This is not the way to win over people who are worried about Trump’s style,” Haley said.
Early election data shows that women’s enthusiasm has increased. Accordingly a Politico analysis of early voting dataCompared to men, who make up 45 percent in the battleground states, women make up 55 percent of early voters.
Democrats say they are hopeful about these numbers, considering women have fared poorly in the polls so far.
A CBS News poll released earlier this week found that 55 percent of women support Harris, while 43 percent said the same about Trump. On the other hand, 45 percent of men said they would support Harris and 54 percent said the same about the former president.
“Every state will be different,” Davison said. “I do think that a woman in Buckhead, outside of Atlanta or Marietta, is going to have a different approach than someone in Media, Pennsylvania, which is in Delaware County outside of Philadelphia.”
