Leading up to Tuesday’s election, the presidential campaigns have been visibly courting the bro vote, with former President Donald Trump appearing on prankster podcasts and Vice President Kamala Harris, well, sending former President Barack Obama out to call black men sexist.
And while this flirtation might be the hot new thing, the long-standing courtship lies with women. (You can buy all sorts of “Women for Trump” gear but nada for the bros.) Harris likely assumes women are in the bag, but Trump is making a concerted effort to appeal to women, including hosting an all-female town hall last month. And Trump needs to win over women. Ten million more women than men voted during the 2020 presidential race. Forget those millions, forget about being president.
Let’s face reality: While married women do vote Republican (though less than married men), single women have not been voting Republican for a while. Ten years ago, 67% of unmarried women voted Democrat, and now, that number remains at 68%. Anecdotally, Trump often comes up as the reason women dislike Republicans. But that’s not what the numbers show. Trump received 32% of the unmarried women vote in 2016 and 36% in 2020 — not a success by any stretch, but he picked up votes and outperformed both John McCain and Mitt Romney. McCain did the worst of them all, and he ran with an energetic mother.
Unmarried women appear to be turned off by Republican policies, not a particular personality. But unmarried women should be interested in voting Republican particularly because conservative policies are empowering.
I discovered this great Eleanor Roosevelt quote in high school: “If I were asked what is the best thing one can expect in life, I would say it is the privilege of being useful.” This resonated with me: True happiness is that feeling after purposeful work — whether that’s in a job, for your family, or for your community. Too many left-leaning policies leave people feeling superfluous or unfulfilled.
Today, only one party prioritizes incentivizing duty and giving people hope and happiness. Harris’s vague economic policy seems to be something along the lines of $6,000 per child (without a work requirement for parents), $25,000 for homebuyers, $5,000 to $50,000 for startups, and so on. Never mind that interest on our national debt is already greater than our defense budget. Even assuming these handouts won’t just cause inflation (which we’ve learned the hard way), they will buy a few months of comfort before it’s back to square one.
Even on smaller issues, only one party questions rampant marijuana legalization, even though statistics show cannabis smokers are (shocker!) more likely to be unemployed. The party of hard truths, but the kind of truths you’d raise your children according to if you wanted them to thrive, is on the Right.
Along these lines, I, like many women, care about ending cyclical poverty. That’s why I joined Teach for America: Providing an education, I thought, would help children become happy, productive adults who raise their children to achieve the same. But I soon saw how hard it is to break the cycle of poverty in single-parent households and how programs to alleviate the burden actually entrench the lifestyle. Having a father at home is not just another income — he is a comforting paternal authority. I could feel it the moment a father would come into my classroom, but I dealt with very few fathers.
Only one party speaks frankly about the benefits of two-parent households. Democrats, instead, obsess with sounding “inclusive” while perpetuating marriage penalties in federal programs and leaving millions of children worse off. Single parents are often doing the best they can, and they need to be encouraged to provide the best example of being a working, productive member of society and empowered to make better choices for their children. It’s a big responsibility but one that the government can’t take away.
And that was the difference for me. Who is actually going to lift up the country, and who says the gentle thing that lands dinner invites but fails people?
Democrats assume that abortion trumps all for single women and will forever land women in blue territory. But why? Trump has staked out the most centrist position imaginable: leaving it to the states and advocating sufficient time to make a decision and exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
A real challenge is simply that we’re dealing with identity. Many single women identify as Democrats. This is what makes examples such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. so powerful. A lifelong Democrat, who speaks on shocking health and weight topics women care about, explaining why he changed his identity can help turn the tide.
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To win over women for the long term will involve years of old-fashioned retail politics, demonstrating that what seems like an old boys’ club really welcomes and can be a home to single women. Candidates and groups should not deem unmarried women as lost causes but invest time personally reaching out to single women, treating them as smart and capable and identifying opportunities for leadership.
Single women should naturally be attracted to the conservative promise of empowering responsibility and opportunity. We need to ensure that message gets through.
May Mailman is a senior legal adviser for Independent Women’s Voice.