Driving GOP women to extremes
Trump has many holding their noses, planning to vote for Clinton or not at all.
GROSSE POINTE WOODS, Mich. — Get Carol Roszka talking about why she does not want Hillary Clinton in the White House, and it is hard to get her to stop. Roszka vents about how Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi terrorist attacks was disgraceful, her feminism phony, and her ambition off- putting.
“She wants to be elected at all costs,” said Roszka, a 63- year- old from suburban Detroit who often votes Republican, as she did in the state’s primary this month.
Yet when she votes in November, Roszka says, it will very likely be for Clinton.
Donald Trump has driven her to it.
“I do not want Trump under any circumstances,” she said of the New York billionaire who appears to be headed for the GOP nomination and a general election f ight against Clinton. “So much so that I will not vote for the Republican Party at all if he runs.”
Roszka is part of Clinton’s coalition of the unwilling: independent and moderate Republican women who don’t like Clinton — some even despise her — but are so revolted by Trump that they are preparing to vote for the Democrat this fall. Either that, or sit out the election.
This loose coalition is large and growing. More Republican women view Trump negatively than positively, according to Gallup. And in a hypothetical matchup with Clinton, a Washington Post/ ABC News poll found this month that Trump loses the women’s vote by 21 points.
A taste of what Trump could expect as nominee came when an anti- Trump super PAC run by Republicans began airing an ad Monday titled “Real Donald Trump Quotes About Women.” Female actors read aloud such Trump remarks as his summation of former rival Carly Fiorina: “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?”
Trump’s problem with women has driven more than a few Republican strategists to warn that his name atop the ticket would be a surefire path to their party’s defeat.
“If the election is close and looks like Donald Trump could be president, there are Republican women who will say, ‘ I can’t believe I am saying this, but I am going to vote for Hillary Clinton,’ ” said Christine Matthews, whose f irm specializes in helping Republicans target women. The only other scenario Matthews foresees with Trump on the ballot is those voters staying home because Clinton’s lead heading into election day is big enough for her to win without them having to commit the unconscionable act of voting for her.
Trump’s strategy of targeting disaffected, white, working- class men may be bringing new voters to the polls, but it is exacerbating the GOP’s chronic troubles luring female voters in presidential elections, according to Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson.
Trump’s approach is ex- actly the opposite of what the Republican Party’s “autopsy” report after Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012 advised: Adopt more- inclusive policies to broaden the party’s base of support.
“It is very dangerous math,” Anderson said of Trump’s strategy. “It is unlikely to pay off in the general election.”
Trump is characteristically unconcerned. The unease this large swath of the electorate feels, he says, will pass once he has locked in the nomination. With typical bombast, he explains it in a way that many of those women are sure to f ind insulting. “I had to be harsh in order to win,” he said on MSNBC last week, after key electoral victories in Michigan and Mississippi. “I can see women not liking that. That will change.”
For a lot of women, though, anxieties about Trump run much deeper than tone.
“He’s sexist; he’s racist; he says things that will cause businesses to lose money,” said Roszka. “He wants to be king or emperor.”
Kelly Grayburn, an occupational therapist in South Carolina, recoiled when asked what she will do if Trump is on the ballot in November. “I can’t even say the words,” the Marco Rubio supporter said before bringing her voice to a whisper. “I would seriously consider voting for Hillary.”
But millions of women will have voted for Trump by the time the Republican primary ends. They might agree with him that his offcolor remarks about women, his disparagement of Mexican immigrants and his warnings about Muslims are not the words of a misogynist, racist and xenophobe, but of a truth talker not bound by political correctness.
“This is the first time I’ve felt excited about a presidential candidate since Reagan,” said Kimberly Dial, an employment agency owner who organized an event for Trump supporters recently at a gun range in McDonough, Ga. “He speaks his mind. He’s not politically correct ... not worried about who he offends.”
Trump’s problem is that so many more women f ind him problematic than inspiring. When the Washington Post/ ABC News poll recently explored how Republican women would vote if the primary were winnowed down to Trump and just one other rival, barely any of the women not already aligned with Trump picked him.
That does not bode well if Trump plans to ease off in the general election from some of the many things he has said in recent months — and years — that have women expressing more anxiety about him than any majorparty front- runner in recent memory.
“There is so much out there in terms of things he has said or tweeted or done, not only in this campaign but before now, that I think women might f ind particularly disturbing,” said Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “These things can be brought out against him, and they are not going to go away.”