Why a strong female support base wasn't enough to help Kamala Harris clinch a presidential win
Trump ran on a promise to fix the economy and to be different from the current administration. That was enough to overcome his weaknesses on the abortion issue.
Female voters were expected to turn out in droves for Kamala Harris on Election Day. There was an advertising blitz encouraging conservative women to vote for Harris in secret. There was a bold proclamation by anti-Donald Trump Republican Liz Cheney that women would “save the day” Tuesday. And polling showed Harris held an impressive 20-point lead over Trump on the issue of abortion.
None of it was nearly enough for Harris to clinch the presidency.
Political scholars and pollsters say Trump handily defeated Harris despite his weaknesses on issues such as abortion because of areas in which he connected so strongly with voters — specifically his claim that he would fix the economy and his commitment to being different from the current administration.
“When you look at the exit poll, what is the issue that was most important? It was the economy and people feeling like they couldn’t make ends meet and that inflation was having a negative impact on their lives,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
“The challenge Kamala Harris had was while she was not Joe Biden, she is Joe Biden’s vice president, and trying to unhook herself from that when the president himself had such a high disapproval rate was really difficult,” she said.
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