Washington, DC – While coverage of the 2024 presidential election focuses on the words and actions of two men with very different ideologies, political strategists are tracking signals from very different barometers.
“Women will decide the vote in this election,” says Roma Daravi, a former Trump White House communications official. “We’ve seen Biden’s approval ratings drop across the board, and it’s different when it comes to women.” Not there.”
If that shift happens in the suburbs, it will be an answer to a prayer for the Trump campaign. In 2020, he lost in the suburban female voting bloc by a wide margin of 13 points: 56-43 percent.
However, today’s polls show President Joe Biden leads among women in the suburbs by just six points. This doesn’t bode well for Democrats, given that they have consistently performed strongly with suburban women over the past decade. In 2014, he won 47 percent; Which increased by 4 points to 51 percent in the 2016 presidential election. And by 2020, they reached a high-water mark of 56 percent.
GOP strategist Alice Stewart takes a look at one factor that could change the situation.
“When you talk to suburban women, they’re concerned about pocketbook issues,” Stewart tells CBN News. “Joe Biden has a record. The problem for him is that it’s broken on the key issues that voters care about… Suburban women voters are the ones who buy groceries and put gas in the tank more often. And When those bills are high, they feel it, they feel it viscerally.”
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The Biden campaign is working to draw attention in the other direction: specifically, abortion. A recent campaign ad taking aim at Trump said, “It was Donald Trump who took away women’s rights to freedom in America… We will teach Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans a valuable lesson: stand with women Don’t mess around.” Of America.”
This can be a successful strategy. While immigration and the economy are major political issues for Biden, a Wall Street Journal poll shows that abortion is the number one issue for suburban female voters in swing states. It comes to 39 percent, which is more than double that of immigration at 16 percent and then the economy drops to just 7 percent.
“It’s almost ridiculous that the Democrats and Joe Biden have such a big pro-abortion stance when they can’t even define what a woman is,” Roma Darawi told CBN News. “How can you be on women’s side when you can’t define what a woman is?”
Still, the GOP knows that this has not been a winnable issue for them politically since the end of Roe v. Wade. To that end, Trump has shied away from talk of an abortion ban. GOP strategist Alice Stewart says, “There has to be a way to thread that needle in the context of Donald Trump remaining steadfast and pro-life, but appealing to independent suburban voters who want to see abortion access.”
Another potential key for Trump will be to win over some of those suburban women who have been labeled, ‘hold your nose voters.’ “I think the fear is that the choices will come down to Donald Trump, Joe Biden or the couch,” Stewart told CBN News.
That’s why as election night approaches, both campaigns will be keeping an eye on key suburbs in key states. In the primary, Nikki Haley performed much better than Trump with women in Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and the suburbs around Atlanta.
“If Nikki Haley is successful in drawing some new voters to the Republican Party, congratulations to her because at the end of the day, we always knew they would vote for President Trump over the finish line,” says Daravi.
This remains to be seen. But according to Darawi, it is certain that suburban women voters will play a key role in capturing the White House next year. “Women are smart. We’re running the world here and I think we’ll definitely have a stake in this upcoming election.”
