James Carville resorted to some old-school chauvinism when he attacked the Democratic Party for being dominated by “preachy females” and having too “feminine” a message. But he also displayed a profound misunderstanding of how the electorate and the ideological landscape have changed since 1992. When he helped elect Bill Clinton, it was still a time when Democrats could win significant numbers of male voters, including white blue-collar men, in red states.
What a difference electing a Black president makes. The backlash, embodied most dramatically by the rise of the Tea Party in 2010, brought a new wave of Republicans into Congress and in legislatures across the country. Though the backlash was partially racially driven, these Tea Party Republicans enacted an avalanche of restrictions on abortion rights while advancing shockingly sexist ideas; for instance, then-Rep. Todd Akin (R), in his race against then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), suggested that it is harder for women to get pregnant when experiencing “legitimate rape” and others who said you could prevent pregnancy by “keeping a Bayer aspirin”…“between their knees.”
The 2010 “war on women” had nothing on Donald Trump. His famous misogyny included asserting that he can grab women “by the p**sy” because he’s a celebrity, accusing then-Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly of having “blood coming out her wherever,” Mika Brzezinski as “bleeding badly from a facelift” and more.
His election pushed women voters into the Democratic column so dramatically that it ushered in a wave election in 2018 led by women candidates, women voters and women donors. This shift was particularly vivid among white college-educated women who moved from supporting Barack Obama with 49 percent of the vote to giving Hillary Clinton 51 percent of the vote to voting for Democrats (57 percent) in 2018 and Joe Biden (57 percent) in 2020.
Democrats beat back an expected “red wave” election in 2022, in large part because of women’s reaction to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that took away women’s fundamental rights. Nationally, white college-educated women voted in slightly lower numbers for Democrats (55 percent), but in states with abortion bans and MAGA candidates, they voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. In Arizona, for example, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) got 64 percent of white college educated women.
Carville may not like it, but the Democratic Party is the women’s party. Sixty percent of self-identified Democrats are women. The base of the Democratic Party, its most loyal voters, are women of color. Ninety-two percent of Black women, 65 percent of Latinas and 69 percent of AAPI women voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
But it’s important to note that not all men are turned off by Carville’s “preachy females.” Forty percent of Democrats are men, and they are pro-choice, worried about climate change and they aren’t any happier than women about anti-democratic encroachments on rights.
Despite all of this evidence of backlash, Republicans cannot help themselves. The Texas Supreme Court would not allow a woman to have a medically necessary abortion, an Ohio prosecutor tried to convict a woman after having a miscarriage, the Alabama Supreme Court banned In vitro fertilization (IVF), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is calling for an end to no fault divorce and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) gave the official Republican response to the State of the Union Address in a kitchen, presenting herself as the traditional Christian wife. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) defended the widely-panned address by saying Britt was “picked as a housewife, not just a senator.”
Carville says Democrats should be talking about beer, hamburgers and football. That may have been good advice in 1992. This week’s Democratic victory in a special election in Alabama, where Democrat Marilyn Lands decisively flipped a Republican seat by running on abortion rights and IVF, suggests otherwise.
Today’s Democrats are talking about what motivates their voters, and a majority of Americans: that Republicans in 2024 are trying to take away decades of progress for women.
Anna Greenberg Ph.D. is a senior partner at GQR, a Democratic polling firm.
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