Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Trump-woman matchup makes Dems skittish
Two-thirds of females in Iowa supported men
PLYMOUTH, N.H. — In a perfect world, Susan Stepp, a 73-year-old retiree, would vote for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday.
But that won’t be happening.
“I am not sure a woman is the best candidate to go up against Trump,” Stepp said recently as she stood in the back of a conference room listening to tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang as part of her hunt for the best candidate to challenge the Republican incumbent.
Stepp’s concern has coursed through the Democratic primary for months, registering in polling, interviews and, now, the first votes cast. In Iowa’s caucuses Monday, many Democrats did not prioritize breaking the gender barrier to the Oval Office.
Only about one-third of Iowa caucusgoers backed a female candidate. Topping the caucus field were two men, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Women were only slightly more likely than men to back one of the three women in the race, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 3,000 Iowa voters.
Most Iowa Democrats said it was important for a woman to be president in their lifetimes. But many voters, including about half of all women, said a female nominee would have a harder time beating President
Donald Trump in November.
“He will just use that against her like he did Hillary,” Stepp said, looking back to Trump’s 2016 race against Hillary Clinton in 2016. “He doesn’t debate. He just insults. I don’t think he would have that same effect if he went up against a strong man.”
Stepp said she plans to vote for Sanders.
As they seek success in New Hampshire, Warren and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar must work to energize voters about the chance to make history and convince them that it is possible this year.
“In 2020, we can and should have a woman for president,” Warren said at a CNN town hall this past week, days after taking third in Iowa. Klobuchar came in fifth. The Associated Press has not called a winner in the Iowa caucus because the race is too close to call.
Seventy-two percent of Democratic voters in Iowa said they thought it is important for the U.S. to elect a woman president in their lifetimes, and that included roughly twothirds of men.
But the survey found that 34 percent of women voted for Warren, Klobuchar or Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, compared with 28 percent of men.
Experts say the findings are in line with traditional patterns in voting by gender.
“Nobody’s going to win an election by unifying women because women are not a unified bloc,” said Kathy Dolan, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “There’s no evidence that suggests for us that women vote much more for women candidates than men.”