[Vogue Magazine] It’s become something of a bleak election night ritual: assessing the exit polls and seeing that white women voters overwhelmingly threw their support behind conservative Republican male candidates. Again. They did it for President Trump, who won an estimated 53 percent of the white female vote in 2016. And they did it with Roy Moore, accused of sexually predatory behavior, in Alabama’s special Senate election last year. And while there were many thrilling, historic wins for progressive women and women of color in particular in the 2018 midterms, as well as data showing that some white women are peeling away from Trump, white women overall rendered more disappointment.
The latest gut punches, courtesy of CNN polling: In the Georgia governor’s race, an estimated 75 percent of white women‐more even than white men!‐voted for Republican Brian Kemp, who is passionately pro-life, over Stacey Abrams, a staunch protector of women’s reproductive rights, while 97 percent of black women supported her. In Texas, 60 percent of white women cast their ballots for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a supporter of alleged assaulters President Trump and Brett Kavanaugh, over Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is dedicated to improving women’s health care. (Ninety-four percent of black women backed O’Rourke.) The numbers were similar in the Florida governor’s race, where 51 percent of white women voted for Republican Ron DeSantis, who has voted against equal pay and the Violence Against Women Act, instead of Democrat Andrew Gillum, who wanted to protect no-cost birth control in the state. Just in case the pattern was unclear: Way more black women‐82 percent‐chose Gillum.
As sure as black women have proven themselves to be the often-underappreciated backbone of the Democratic party, white women voters are establishing themselves as maddeningly, confusingly . . . unsisterly. |