President Trump has a way with women, though it’s not what you might think.
Despite being condemned as a sexist and worse by Democrats and the media, women who voted for Trump in 2016 have become his most loyal supporters, even more than men.
What’s more, he is turning most into dedicated Republicans, according to exclusive new polling provided to Secrets.
“One of the great untold stories for Trump is how he is connecting with women,” said Anne Sorock, a pollster and president of the Frontier Lab, which uses behavioral science to explore the cultural and political landscape.
In the election, Trump did surprisingly better with women than Hillary Clinton, winning 47 percent to her 45 percent.
Sorock, who has been studying the president’s female supporters, said that many went out on a limb for Trump, viewing him as strong, confident, and anti-swamp. And when he beat Clinton, it was a confirmation that they were right, giving them a feeling of empowerment.
“When they initially supported him, they went against many of their communities and friends; when they were then proven correct, they told us that the empowerment was exhilarating. In contrast to the Tea Party women, who were energized by the gathering together of like-minded people to fight for Americanism, the new Trump women relate to an attitude that has been missing from our national culture: America is good and worth defending,” she said.
And that Trump “attitude” in office has reinforced their loyalty and helped to turn many previously politically unaffiliated women voters into Republicans.
In her new polling for Frontier Lab’s Ear to the Ground, for example, Sorock found that 85 percent of female primary Trump voters said that they will definitely vote Republican in the future, compared to 78 percent of male Trump voters.
“Most striking is that women who voted for Trump generally support the party more than men who voted for him in the primary and other (non-Trump) Republican primary voters,” said Sorock. “This may be an area for Republican leaders to explore as they express concern about suburban women disaffiliating from the Republican label,” she added.
That is exactly what a pro-GOP women’s group is trying to do.
Winning for Women, a 2017 startup that has over 300,000 members and plans to play big in the upcoming election, has launched a recruiting campaign to get more Republican women elected.
The group, which hopes to compete with the liberal EMILY’s List, stepped up its campaign last week after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced plans to target three female Republican House members for defeat.
In a fundraising letter to supporters, the group said, “Liberals claim to want more women in office, but they’re already coming after women on the right.” It added, “2020 is closer than we think, so we need your help now if we’re going to push back against another wave of liberal women. Help us fight the left’s hypocrisy and protect conservative women.”
Sorock said that her polling suggests that the outreach from Winning for Women and other GOP groups is perfectly timed.
“We found a fundamental value realized by their support for Trump was empowerment,” she said of female Trump backers. “This empowerment was a new experience as it relates to politics. It would follow that they are now clearly the most loyal to him and to his party.” she said.
[Also read: Democratic women celebrate on the House floor in reaction to Trump’s State of the Union shoutout]
