Trump Struggles With Suburban Women in 2020 Election

For the last several election cycles, pollsters and political pundits have been hyper-focused on a specific voting bloc: suburban women.

“The number one issue we find when we ask [women] what you want in a president is integrity.” — Sarah Chamberlain, Main Street Partnership

This group has become even more consequential in the 2020 presidential election, with many women disillusioned by Donald Trump. Suburban women voters have the potential to make or break Trump’s re-election, so who exactly are these women voters and what issues do they care about most?

Listen: How big a role will suburban women play in the November election?

Guests

Sarah Chamberlain is the President and CEO of Main Street Partnership, an organization that supports Republicans in Congress. She says that right now, the GOP has really turned off women.

“They’re just tired of the rhetoric, they’re tired of the controversies, and unfortunately they — like the First Lady — is tired of the President’s tweeting,” says Chamberlain.

She says suburban women now look very different from one another but are united on issues like the environment and health care. The women that Chamberlain surveyed also cite moral character as a key factor in considering candidates.

“The number one issue we find when we ask [women] what you want in a president is integrity,” says Chamberlain. She says for this reason many suburban women voters are rigid in their movement away from Trump. “I think suburban women are pretty much locked in right now,” says Chamberlain.

Zack Stanton, digital editor of Politico Magazine, says the suburbs aren’t a monolithic bloc in the way they once were. He adds that old school political tactics don’t work on increasingly racially and economically diverse suburban voters. For this reason, Trump’s message of racial resentment is backfiring. Stanton says suburban voters are troubled that they don’t see the president trying to unite people in any real way.

“A lot of suburban voters are just tired of the sense of constant chaos, of never knowing what’s next, or even just having to think about politics all the time,” says Stanton.