Suburban Women Are Fed Up With The Republican Party And Could Drive A Blue Wave

Suburban Women Are Fed Up With The Republican Party And Could Drive A Blue Wave
If there's a Democratic sweep in November, politically moderate suburban women will be a big reason why. "Now I’m Democratic," said one Michigan woman. "I’ve never been before."
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on October 16, 2018, at 12:26 p.m. ET



The popular face of this year’s elections on the American left may well be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a young democratic socialist who shocked the Democratic establishment in New York City. But if there is a blue wave this year, the real driving force will be the country’s politically moderate suburban women.

Since the election of Donald Trump, many have turned their backs on the Republican Party, and many others have become politically engaged for the first time in their lives. Suburban women are rallying to take control of Congress away from Trump — and potentially to take over the Democratic Party.

Once reliably Republican-voting, college-educated white women — who make up a large portion of women voters in the suburbs — flipped from Mitt Romney to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a narrow 6-point margin. That gap is now a chasm. In a poll of 59 battleground House races nationwide, college-educated white women now favor Democrats over Republicans by nearly 30 points.

College-educated and suburban women are also the group perhaps most energized in this year’s election campaigns. If Democrats take Congress, it’ll be suburban women’s interests that get them there: less socialism, more education reform; less Medicare for All, more Affordable Care Act; less political battling, more bipartisanship.

Conversations with more than three dozen suburban women voters across three swing districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota illuminate that stark shift. For many of these women, a longstanding personal dislike of Trump has seeped into the Republican Party since the 2016 election — even to many Republican incumbents who have scrambled to distance themselves from the president.

A similar refrain from women who had voted Republican: Not this time.

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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/democrats-blue-wave-midterms-suburban-woman-voters