Former Trump White House aide and pollster Kellyanne Conway argued Wednesday that Democrats are in real trouble heading into the midterms given the disappearance of the party’s traditional advantage with women.
A New York Times/Siena College survey released Monday found 47 percent of likely women voters favor the GOP on a generic congressional ballot and 47 percent prefer the Democratic Party.
As a point of reference, President Joe Biden won the women’s vote by more than 10 percentage points in the 2020 general election over then-President Donald Trump, according to the Times.
However, independent women have surged strongly toward the Republican Party since last month, from favoring the Democrat candidate on a generic ballot by 14 percent to supporting the GOP by 18 percent now, a 32-point swing.
Conway called the poll’s findings “remarkable” on the Fox News program “America’s Newsroom” on Wednesday.
“If the Democrats don’t have the gender gap among women, they don’t have a prayer on Nov. 8. This could be a very big Republican year,” said Conway, who served as Trump’s campaign manager in 2016.
“The reason is very obvious. When you ignore the will of the people as expressed in polls, you’re ignoring the will of the people overall.”
“And Biden has picked the wrong hill to die on here with Roe,” Conway argued, referring to the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationally — a decision that was overturned by the Supreme Court in June.
Do you think Republicans will take back control of Congress?
After the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health decision, abortion is an issue to be settled at the state level, not the federal level.
And it’s not an issue that will turn the election in Democrats’ favor, Conway said.
“They’re taking a huge chance, a huge risk among female voters by narrowcasting to women and thereby ignoring that we women are not single-issue thinkers, single-issue doers and single-issue voters,” Conway said of the Democrats.
NYT Poll 2022 Generic Ballot Summary
Overall: GOP +4 (49/45)
Independents: GOP +10 (51/41)
Independent women: GOP +18Net Shift Towards The GOP from Sep
⦿ Overall: R+6
⦿ Independents: R+9
⦿ women: R+13
⦿ ??????????? ?????: ?+??https://t.co/tAKnWJwjdB pic.twitter.com/OSMildq53t— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) October 18, 2022
A Fox News poll released over the weekend found that abortion did not rank among the top five issues for registered voters.
The issues either extremely or very important to them were inflation (89 percent), crime (79 percent), political division (74 percent), Russia-Ukraine situation (73 percent), and schools (72 percent).
Abortion came in at 71 percent.
Biden’s job approval rating in the Times survey was 39 percent and in the Fox poll was 46 percent.
Historically, when the president’s approval rating has dropped below 50 percent, his party has consistently faced a blowout in the House of Representatives and loss of the chamber in the midterms.
For example, Democrats lost 54 seats in 1994 when then-President Bill Clinton’s approval was at 48 percent.
Republicans gave up 30 seats in 2006, when then-President George W. Bush’s approval rating fell to 37 percent.
Four years later, in the 2010 midterms, then-President Barack Obama’s approval stood at 45 percent, and the GOP picked up 63 seats.
Most recently, in 2018, when 40 percent of Americans approved of then-President Trump’s handling of the job, Republicans lost 40 seats in the House.
The Times/Siena survey was conducted by telephone with 792 likely voters nationwide from Oct. 9 to 12. The margin of error was 4.1 percentage points.
The Fox survey was conducted by telephone among 1,206 registered voters nationwide from Oct. 9 to 12, with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
