Women take reins in organizing RNC
Alison Dirr
When the Republican National Convention goes live on July 15, it will be predominately women who brought the four-day made-for-TV event to fruition. Women top the list of lead RNC organizers, and 31 of the 39 staff members who make up the committee charged with organizing the convention are women.
Polling suggests Republican former President Donald Trump faces an uphill climb with Wisconsin's female voters, an important demographic in what is expected to be a close rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
Combining three Marquette Law School polls in Wisconsin conducted over the past year, Republicans enjoy a 13-point edge in party identification with men but Democrats enjoy a 12-point edge with women. Republicans point to national polling indicating negative approval numbers for Biden among women.
The convention organizers said there was no political message in choosing women to lead and staff the Committee on Arrangements, which organizes the RNC, but said women's influence would be felt in the issues raised at the July 15-18 event that will be broadcast across the nation from downtown Milwaukee.
On that list: “Kitchen table issues” like inflation, public safety, U.S. border security and education.
“Every convention is unique and is tailored to the time, and we are at a very pivotal time, I think, in this country,” said Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and daughter-in-law of the former president. “And I think having an equal footing and an equal seat at the table is important, and I think that's something that we want to reflect at the RNC and something we plan to reflect, of course, in this convention.”
It remains to be seen how female voters will weigh issues Republicans raise against Trump's polarizing history with women and his central role during his first term in the overturning of a constitutional right to abortion, a decision that remains in the national discourse as state courts, lawmakers and voters battle over what restrictions to place on access to the procedure.
“Women have been a powerful force in elections and in close, close elections their votes can determine the outcome,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics. “So, you will see both sides really working hard to energize and activate those women voters and doing pretty much everything they can to turn them out and to get them to vote on their behalf.”
And while women are not monolithic as a voting group, since 1980 there has been a gender gap in which women as a whole are more likely than men to support Democratic candidates over Republicans, Walsh said.
‘A different lens’
One of the lead organizers, Elise Dickens, said she expected “renewed focus on some kitchen table-type issues.”
“I think what you'll see from speakers and leaders from our party across the board are politically the issues that really matter to women, who are heads of their household, who are paying their grocery bills, ... who are worried about their kids' education or worried about child care, worried about all sorts of things, public safety,” said Dickens, the CEO for the Committee on Arrangements.
The women hired to run the RNC “have their finger on the pulse of what's happening in this country,” said Anne Hathaway, Committee on Arrangements chairwoman.
“This convention's going to energize our base, but it will also connect with young mothers, female small-business owners,” Hathaway said. “Safety, security are big deals for us.”
Many of the women on the team are already accomplished within the political realm, and their leadership roles at the convention will take them to the next level, said Hathaway, who leads the Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series that seeks to expand the number of Republican women in public service. Women, she said, are “great listeners and they're good at the details.”
“Not that men aren't, but I think we see things through a different lens and bring a great perspective, which puts us in the position to have just an amazing convention,” she said.
Lara Trump said the convention would compare Donald Trump's 2016-2020 term in office to Biden's, which began when he unseated Trump in the 2020 election.
Trump navigates abortion issue
Ultimately, the star of the show will be Trump, a man with a polarizing history with women and reproductive rights.
Both continue to make news.
In May, a federal jury found Trump liable in a civil case for sexual abuse and defamation of advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and determined he should pay $5 million in damages. Following the verdict, Trump said on his Truth Social website that he has “no idea” who she is, according to USA TODAY. He has appealed.
Then in January, a federal civil jury said he must pay Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her in 2019, when he denied her allegations of sexual assault. On Truth Social, he said he disagreed with the verdicts and called them a “Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party,” according to USA TODAY.
Trump is also indelibly tied to the politically delicate issue of abortion, having made a point in his first term of nominating three U.S. Supreme Court justices who in 2022 helped overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had for decades guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.
Since then, abortion has been a key issue across the nation as states have battled over everything from constitutional amendments to 1800s-era laws that were resurrected after Roe fell.
The Supreme Court decision played a key role in the 2022 midterm elections and continues to be a crucial issue in 2024. This was clear in the video statement Trump published this month in which he “proudly” took credit for his role in overturning Roe even as he said individual states should choose their own abortion restrictions and avoided talking about any kind of federal government ban. His comments angered both Democrats and anti-abortion Republicans.