Gender Politics in Play Following Acela Primary Victories

Hillary Clinton all but secured the nomination last night with wins in four out of five primaries while Donald Trump’s five-state sweep drew him closer to a first-ballot win at the Republican convention. On a conference call with Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund (WVWVAF) yesterday, Paul Begala, Democratic strategist and a key advisor to WVWVAF, declared that “it was a night of clarity” determining how the general election will shape up.

Another thing that became abundantly clear Tuesday night is that Trump plans to play the “woman card” against Secretary Clinton. Trump, who already polls very negatively with women voters (particularly among unmarried women), didn’t do himself any favors when he said in his victory speech that “if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she would get 5 percent of the vote.”

Luckily, as Begala noted, “The thing Hillary relishes most in life is standing up to a bully.” Clinton responded to Trump’s attack with: “Well, if fighting for women’s health care, and paid family leave, and equal pay is playing the ‘woman card,’ then deal me in.”

This exchange is confirmation of the deciding role women will have in this election: Neither candidate can win if they lose women.

Currently, women make up over 53 percent of registered voters and have outnumbered the number of men voting in every presidential since 1960. Unmarried women (half of all women), make up over a quarter of all eligible voters and almost half of the New American Majority/Rising American electorate.

Our last Democracy Corps poll a few weeks ago showed Trump in trouble with unmarried women with married women supporting Trump by a 3-point margin and unmarried women supporting Clinton by a whopping 52-point margin.

That’s a 55-point marriage gap.

Additionally, Trump’s attacks on women have put white working class women – a group not traditionally part of the progressive base – in play. Our Democracy Corps poll showed a 9-point climb between December and March in the percentage of white working class women intensely interested in the race – with nearly seven-in-ten rating it the a “10 out of 10” on the interest scale.

Clearly, Clinton’s agenda – minimum wage, equal pay, paid leave – matters to all women and could be where the battle lines are drawn in November.