Don’t mention Trump – how Republicans try to sway women voters » Capital News

Sep 8 – Surrounded by food trucks, Ferris wheels and funnel cake stands on a hot August afternoon, Stephanie Soucek has one goal in mind.

The 42-year-old chair of the Republican Party in Door County, a bellwether district in the battleground state of Wisconsin, is at the county fair to urge undecided voters to cast a ballot for Donald Trump.

Upon meeting Tammy Conway, a Democrat who is considering voting Republican for the first time in decades, Ms Soucek begins talking about her own family’s two expensive car payments, an economic message that seems to resonate.

Ms Conway is concerned about “sky-high” housing interest rates and said Trump might make the economy “a lot less complicated”.

But as Ms Soucek lays out her case for the Republican presidential candidate, she avoids mentioning the latest spate of controversial remarks Trump has made, including personal attacks on Democratic challenger Kamala Harris.

“I try to tell people to focus on the policies and ignore the candidates,” she said, knowing that Trump’s brash personality has deterred women previously.

Republican officials in a handful of swing states – where the election is likely to be decided – are adopting Ms Soucek’s strategy of promoting policy over personality with white suburban female voters. It’s a pivotal voting bloc Trump narrowly won in his first presidential race but has struggled to appeal to since.

Local Republicans say they wish Trump would adopt a similar approach against Vice-President Harris, whose campaign has been powered by female voters since she replaced Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in July.

The concern brings into focus the widening gender gap that has come to define the election. Trump is courting young – especially black and Hispanic – men while Democrats are working to attract female voters motivated by the overturning of Roe v Wade, a landmark Supreme Court ruling that had enshrined the constitutional right to an abortion.

An ABC News/Ipsos released in September suggested the vice-president led the former president 54% to 41% among women – a seven-point jump since the Democratic National Convention late last month.

It has some Republicans worried about whether Trump can reverse the trend, Ms Soucek said.

Defending a ‘brash’ candidate

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Ms Harris has “implemented dangerously liberal policies that have left women worse off financially and far less safe than we were four years ago under President Trump”.

But some who spoke to the BBC said his campaign has remained fixated on men – not women.

Republican pollster Christine Matthews said Trump’s team is “doubling down on a strategy of motivating the Maga base and hoping to motivate men – particularly non-college-educated men including those who are Hispanic in addition to white – in a way that will overpower the gender gap”.

The Trump campaign has leaned into “bro culture”, emphasising masculinity and a contrast of “weak versus tough”, said Chuck Coughlin, a political strategist who works with Republicans in the battleground state of Arizona.

“That appeals to a lot of men,” he said. “It doesn’t appeal to unaffiliated voters.”

Trump’s choice of JD Vance as his running mate reinforced how the campaign is prioritising outreach to men. They may not have expected his addition to the ticket to have been so damaging with women voters, however.

The Ohio senator has faced a backlash over previous comments about women, in particular a 2021 clip in which he calls several Democrats, including Ms Harris, “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives”.

These types of comments do not help attract swing women voters, according to Betsy Fischer Martin, executive director of the nonpartisan Women & Politics Institute.

“There are plenty of childless cat ladies voting in the suburbs,” she said.

But the former president’s campaign rhetoric does not bother some ardent female supporters like Dixie, a 59-year-old Republican from Door County.

“He’s not going to tell you what you want to hear. He’s going to tell you the truth,” said Dixie, who declined to share her last name for privacy reasons.

Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, who served as his 2016 campaign manager, told the BBC that voters could not have his policies without his “strong and resolute and tough” personality.

“People, and particularly women, tend to kvetch and converse and complain about what offends them, and then they vote according to what affects them,” she said.

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Grocery prices over personal gripes

Local Republicans in battleground states are hoping to stop the erosion of female support by steering the conversation back to issues that affect families on a daily basis, like crime and the economy, where polls suggest the party is more popular.

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic make it difficult to compare how the US economy performed under the Trump and Biden administrations. While both enjoyed notable economic growth, inflation has been a persistent problem in the last three years as wages have struggled to keep up with rising prices.

And a recent KFF poll indicated inflation was the top issue in this race for 40% of suburban women voters.

For Lyla Juntunen, 88, a former stay-at-home mom from the suburbs of Green Bay, Wisconsin, the price increases under Mr Biden have been hard to ignore.

“Look at these groceries that you get and how much you pay,” she told the BBC, gesturing toward a full shopping cart in a grocery store car park.

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