WaPo OP: White women vote Republican. Get used to it, Democrats.

[My Pet Orangutan]

Last edited Sun Nov 29, 2020, 03:11 AM - Edit history (1)

White women vote Republican. Get used to it, Democrats.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/27/white-women-vote-republican-get-used-it-democrats/

Dear Ms. Lenz, you can't hang an entire contemptous polemic on one number - the iffy result of one 2020 poll.

The last two exit polls we have on white women are
2016: 52 - 44 (GOP)
2018: 49 - 49 tie

The numbers for 2020, 55 - 42 (GOP), that so delighted Ms. Lenz, as reported by Edison Research, do not come from a reliable exit poll, and cannot be compared to 2016.

Voting in 2020 was radically different than in earlier years. Edison attempted to cover all voters but the result was a second rate kludge. Here is the breakdown:

65m absentee (telephone surveys)
35m early voters (telephone surveys, and some post voting interviews)
55m on election day voters (all post voting interviews)

https://www.edisonresearch.com/election-polling/

The 2016 exit polls were all election day interviews. This is important for two reasons. First, exit interviews are the gold standard - On the day you know that someone has voted, and are most likely to get an accurate answers. And Second - This Year - election day voters were heavily skewed towards the GOP. Edison had to reweight bewteen on the day, and democratic mail in / early votes - but had no scientific basis for doing so.

And telephone polls are ... telephone polls ... oh so reliable . Why should we believe Edison's over any of the others? For example, the IBD/TIPP poll of Oct 29- Nov 2. had Biden +4, and leading 51 - 45 with white women.
https://www.investors.com/politics/biden-vs-trump-ibd-tipp-presidential-election-tracking-poll-2020/

In short - 'White women vote Republican. Get used to it, Democrats?' Keep the sneer to yourself Ms. Lenz. Do some research or shut the fuck up.

[Iliyah]

1. And yet white women helped Biden/Harris over the top . .

go figure.

[My Pet Orangutan]

2. The GOP are losing the suburbs.

[OnDoutside]

6. Yes, the bigger question is where that supposed increase was. Getting an extra 500K in already

deeply red areas doesn't make a difference for them.

[Rice4VP]

13. Why are they (we) assuming that the suburbs is White women?

I live in the suburbs and I’m not white. This might be part of the confusion and discrepancy. They need to drill down on what exactly a “suburban” woman is.

[My Pet Orangutan]

14. The GOP lost badly in the suburbs this year,

losing more than 6% of voters, whatever their race or income might be.

[Rice4VP]

16. Ok. But since Trump got a higher percentage of

Last edited Fri Nov 27, 2020, 09:01 PM - Edit history (1)

White women to vote for him, then those wins in the suburbs can’t be attributed to them. Maybe we need to look at it from state to state. They said that Biden got more of the White male vote.

[My Pet Orangutan]

24. Trump did not get a higher percentage of white women,

as far as we know. That was what my OP was all about

[Rice4VP]

25. 52% of them voted for him in 2016 and 55% voted for him this year

https://19thnews.org/2020/11/white-women-had-doubts-they-voted-for-trump-anyway/

[My Pet Orangutan]

31. You didn't read my OP

The point is you can't use the 2020 'exit' poll. That is what I spent paragraphs explaining.

[kcr]

38. Those numbers are based on exit polls

Other more reliable polls show lower numbers.

[Hortensis]

79. More than that, more white women voted Democratic than black,

simply because there are a lot more white women overall. As a female Democratic voter, I refuse to be damned by being lumped with morality-corrupted white trumpist women, or men. Good people of all races pulled together to elect Democrats and defeat the rising evil on the right.

[Zoonart]

3. This white woman has NEVER, in fifty years of voting, voted for a Republican ...

and NEVER will.

[My Pet Orangutan]

4. 60+ white male. Ditto.

[TDale313]

11. This 50 year old white woman, either. n/t

[OnionPatch]

34. Same here.

I’m a 61 yr old white woman and have voted in every major election. Not once have I ever voted Republican.

[hamsterjill]

45. Same age here.

Never voted for a Republican in my life, and I vote!

I hate labels.

[Blue Owl]

5. The only women I know of who voted Republican

Were deeply religious RWNJs -- no others...

[apcalc]

10. Yes! Almost all the women I know (Philly burbs) voted for Biden.

[apcalc]

7. White MEN voted for Trump.

[TwilightZone]

22. That was expected.

After 2018 and Trump's last two years of anti-woman nonsense, many thought that white women might break toward the Dems.

Alas, no.

[mucifer]

8. most of us Jewish white women hate trump

[SlogginThroughIt]

9. Just don't call them a karen!!!!

[love_katz]

12. Count me as another white woman who has NEVER voted for a Republican!

48 years of voting, and I still just say NO to Republiturds.

[sinkingfeeling]

15. Some of us do not.

[Sugarcoated]

17. Not this white woman

I don't know the numbers but didn't we have something to do with the PA win for Biden?

[TomDaisy]

18. not this white woman. not ever.

[fearnobush]

19. Yeah this piece is bunk. He doesn't even mention the fact that half the country voted absentee

And 75% of those were Dems.

[TwilightZone]

23. Might want to read it again.

"65m absentee (telephone surveys)"

They were clearly noted.

[demigoddess]

20. not all of them, not this one, not ever.

[Mossfern]

21. Hmmm.....

I thought I was a white woman. Wondering if the color or gender that I mistaken about.

[brush]

26. So what are the final numbers of white women for trump v Biden?

Percentages?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

27. White women voters have broken for the Democratic presidential candidate only twice since 1952.

White supremacy is a helluva drug.

[tulipsandroses]

28. I do think there is some truth to this

The gist of what I got out this was the last 2 paragraphs

White women voting Republican isn’t remarkable. What is remarkable is the amount of money and effort that went to flip suburban women, who had no intention of voting Democratic at all, while other groups of voters were taken for granted. Trump made gains in 2020 among Black voters and Latino voters, two subsets of voters long considered a monolith but who are far more complex and multifaceted than any party gives them credit for and who demonstrated independent thinking that went against predicted behavior.
As we continue to sift through the wreckage of the Trump years, a process that should not stop on Jan. 20, the Democratic Party should stop wasting so much time on the lost cause of suburban wine moms and start listening to the voices that form the core of the party’s base.

And its happening all over again. We've already started dissecting the Trump voter. Heck some knowledgable sociologist implied in her new deep dive that we should not be so mean and forget the word racist. Its laughable. People will spend the next few years dissecting the white male and female Trump vote.

No attention being paid to minority voters. It never ceases to amaze.

[kcr]

37. It's based on exit polls. It's bunk.

She even points out early in the article how more white women actually went for Clinton in 2016 because exit polls are garbage, but then ignores that and goes right on basing her premise on exit polls. They were even more unreliable this time around, so the likelihood that all the gains Trump made by Blacks and Latinos will also go poof.

[tulipsandroses]

54. I understand that its based on exit polls. However 73 million people voted for trump. So unlesss,

all 73 million were men. I am going to assume that a good chunk of that 73 million were women. Sure when the final numbers are released, it may show some slippage in women. However, I think liberals underestimate how many republican women were willing to stick with trump and the Republican Party. White women are not immune to racism and white supremacy. I take it the writer was not speaking to liberal leaning white women having a propensity to vote republican.

I will stand by what I said about people who will spend the next few years dissecting the white vote, but not trying to figure out why a certain segment of the black population feels the way they do.

[JI7]

40. The black and latino gains were mostly in places like Florida and Texas where a Ground Campaign is

important to reach many communities . Democrats didn't do this because of the pandemic . Plus Texas was not one of the major focuses of our campaign .

BUT in places like Georgia and other states we did do well with black and latino voters AND with certain white women. That's how we won Georgia.

[yardwork]

70. The ground game and strategy is essential, agreed.

Biden won in Georgia and not in Florida. The Democratic Party MUST figure out why and apply that knowledge in 2024.

[LeftInTX]

80. I received campaign lit at my door for Republicans

For Democrats, I only got mail.

I don't know if the Republicans knocked or just dropped lit. I know they wore masks. But even going door to door without knocking provides outdoor encounters. I personally went no-knock and had outdoor encounters.

Democratic candidates did not go door to door in my neighborhood.
Late in the game, local candidates such as sheriff went door to door, but only in a few neighborhoods.

During the primary , before Covid my door was littered with Democratic campaign lit.

[StarfishSaver]

60. This

I have been saying this til I'm blue in the face, yet some people (always white people), keep telling me we still have to "reach out" to these people if we want to win. Reaching out is one thing - climbing over black and brown people with out lips puckered up begging for one more chance is another.

[LaMouffette]

29. Seems to be retired white women with investment portfolios and a self-centered mindset . . .

who vote Republican. Self-centered retired white men with investment portfolios, too, of course. In other words, the Pickleball Generation. A Politico article from 2018 describes a Florida retirement community filled with members of this demographic:

The Villages is America’s largest retirement community, a carefully planned, meticulously groomed dreamscape of gated subdivisions, wall-to-wall golf courses, adult-only pools and old-fashioned town squares. It’s advertised as “Florida’s friendliest hometown,” and it’s supposed to evoke a bygone era of traditional values when Americans knew their neighbors, respected their elders and followed the rules. It has the highest concentration of military veterans of any metropolitan area without a military base. It has strict regulations enforcing the uniformity of homes (no second stories, no bright colors, no modern flourishes) as well as the people living in them (no families with children, except to visit). And it is Trump country, a reliably Republican, vocally patriotic, almost entirely white enclave that gave the president nearly 70 percent of the vote.

Here's the article:

[link:https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/06/18/politico-magazine-generation-pickleball-welcome-to-floridas-political-tomorrowland-472906|

There are plenty of retired white women and men with investment portfolios who do NOT vote Republican, though. I think the difference is the "I've got mine, you get yours" mentality. People with this mindset vote Republican. People with the mindset "I've got mine, let me help you get yours, too!" vote Democrat.

[JI7]

30. More white women did vote democratic in key places compared to 2016

[MadLinguist]

32. May we presume, Ms. Lenz, that you are a white woman?

Your wishes do not speak for an entire demographic.
Since you are willing to speak for so many, here's a stab at speaking for you:
-- Had you lived 100 years ago, you would likely have been against women of any color voting at all.

You can sit all the way down, and when you speak, speak for yourself.
No guarantees that anyone will give a single fuqq what you say

[My Pet Orangutan]

36. Yeppers

'Lyz Lenz'

[yardwork]

42. I recommend that you actually read the column.

[StarfishSaver]

61. Why read the column when you can get all worked up at the very mention of "white women"

Those words seem to have a triggering effect.

[niyad]

33. This old white woman has never voted for anything with an "r" after its name, and never will. Nor

Has any white woman I know, regardless of age.

[we can do it]

35. Not this. Not 95% of my female friends.

[mahina]

39. Not a single one I know.

[yardwork]

41. Did you read the entire column? The headline is misleading.

This columnist is saying what many of us have been saying here. Read the whole column.

[My Pet Orangutan]

44. Yes I did, and Ms. Lenz is wrong.

White women in the burbs are swinging hard to the Dems. The GOP is losing some of them forever. Lenz quotes a phony exit poll to assert it just ain't so.

[yardwork]

47. Her overall point is correct, I believe. White people vote Republican.

Not all, of course. But election after election, most white people vote for Republican candidates. Lots of attention is paid to them, while black and brown people overwhelmingly vote Democratic and seem ignored.

I'm a white woman. I know plenty of supposedly smart white women who vote for Republicans, patriarchy, and supposed "safety." This columnist sums them up pretty well.

Once we acknowledge this fact, the Democratic Party can build better strategies for turning out the vote. (Hint: the strategy probably won't depend on white people suddenly changing their 70 years of voting behavior.)

[My Pet Orangutan]

48. And the better strategies are ...

winning back white working class men, ala Sanders?

[yardwork]

49. Sanders downplays the role of racism. I disagree with him.

I think that this country must confront our history and I think that white people must confront and acknowledge how much deeply ingrained racism controls our systems, laws, and beliefs.

As white people, we must let go of our irrational fears of other people.

Ironically, that revolution might happen in the suburbs, of all places. Suburbs are increasingly diverse. Nothing breaks down stereotypes faster than living right next to one another, in cookie cutter houses, and noticing that our neighbors are all pretty much like us, no matter what they look like, where they're from, and who they love.

[My Pet Orangutan]

51. Let me quote something about NBC's 2020 exit poll for Minnesota.

In neighboring Minnesota, which NBC News projects will go to Biden, white college-educated voters helped buoy the Democrat in a state carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Two-thirds of white college educated voters casting ballots said they supported Biden, according to the exit poll data; just a third are voting for Trump. This is a massive since shift 2016, when Trump captured 41 percent of white college-educated voters.

In particular, white college-educated women have moved sharply to the left since 2016. Four years ago, Clinton won this group by 15 percentage points — 54 percent cast a ballot for Clinton, while 39 percent cast a ballot for Trump. In the 2020 race, Biden leads Trump among white women with a college degree by almost 40 percentage points.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/nbc-news-exit-poll-fewer-half-voters-approve-trump-s-n1246091

In 2014, exit polls reported that white women favored the GOP 56 - 42
In 2018, the vote was tied at 49 - 49.

Yes 2018 was a higher turnout ... the point is more white women, particularly college-educated white women, turned out to vote against Republicans.

Turning out Dem college educated whites is a viable strategy.

[yardwork]

52. Trump is so extreme, I'm not sure we can count on this as a trend.

Looking ahead to the 2022 elections, Democrats must:

Turn out the vote strongly among our traditional bases: black and brown people, urban voters, LGBTQ people, union members, young college-educated, etc.

Convince people who have never voted to register and vote Democratic.

Continue to make inroads among subsets of white voters who sometimes vote Democratic: white suburban women, white professionals.

Stop obsessing over white rural voters. They're brainwashed and lost to reason.

[My Pet Orangutan]

53. I agree with all of that ...

And I would not suggest compromising the GOTV of our traditional bases.

[uponit7771]

58. +1, I scream at the notion that if I was rich or well off racism would affect me less.

[StarfishSaver]

62. You're right that white people need to get over irrational fears. They also must

get over the visceral instinct to circle the wagons whenever anyone tries to have a rational and honest discussion about the role of a significant proportion of white people's in maintaining the racial and racist status quo (as evidenced in this thread).

[yardwork]

64. This thread is certainly illuminating, isn't it?

I'm a middle-aged white woman and I'm somewhat amazed at the knee jerk responses in this thread. The responses here seem to prove your point.

[raccoon]

43. This senior white woman in a red state sure as hell doesn't. Nt

[Brainfodder]

46. How much of that is white men affecting their vote?

If you removed all the poorly informed ones, what's the # look like?

[Cameliano]

50. One columnist on WaPo

Don't call it WaPo.
I hate when a columnist is called by the name of the entire newspaper.
A linkbaity columnist is not a newspaper.

[AnnieBW]

55. I've Only Voted for 2 Republicans In My Life

I'm a suburban white woman. I've only voted for two Republicans in my life - Sen. John Heinz when I lived in Pennsylvania, and whoever was running against Governor Schaefer here in Maryland, because I thought that he was an assclown.

[electric_blue68]

56. This 67 yr old white woman has never voted for...

a Republican.
As far as I know almost all of my white women friends haven't either.

The only time, and this was before I was eligible to vote at 18 I ever volunteered for Republicans were two Liberal Republicans - John V Lindsey in '69, and Charles Goodell in '70.

Yes there was such a creature as a liberal republican back then.

(I volunteered for Humphrey's campaign in Fall '68, while RFK had been my first choice. I don't know why I didn't go volunteer - my dad had already had me putting flyers w him under my neighbors' apt building doors by the time I was ?13 Lol - after Bobby announced his candidency in March. I do remember thinking I'd go to see him when he would have campaigned in NYS/NYC in Mid-June, and go volunteer over that Sumner pre-convention.
Maybe I was just too tied up w my first year in HS, and we had a partly activist liberal leaning, and some real socialists as well, and contentions going between moderate black students, and more black power supporters so a lot was going on literally in my school then, too! sigh )

[smirkymonkey]

57. This article was complete bullshit and extremely poorly written.

This woman needs to find a new line of work, because she surely is not a journalist. And has no business being an opinion writer. I can't even begin to pick apart her pathetic article. It was a complete mess.

[yardwork]

63. I had a completely different opinion. I thought she made some excellent points.

[smirkymonkey]

76. Such as?

[yardwork]

81. See my other posts in this thread.

[GoCubsGo]

59. Interesting, because I'm a white woman, and I voted for Biden.

So did both of my white sisters, my white niece, and every white female friend I have. As did both of my most recent employers, both white and female, and many of my white, female neighbors. I have no idea who is Lyz Lenz, or why her opinion is worth even the pulp it's printed on, but she can kiss my fat ass.

[yardwork]

65. That's nice, but the fact remains that, every election, most white people vote Republican.

[GoCubsGo]

66. No. A slim majority vote Republican.

That is not "most."

[yardwork]

67. Definition of "most:"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/most

"Greatest in quantity....; the majority of."

[GoCubsGo]

68. Barely. But, not the huge majority she makes it out to be.

[StarfishSaver]

72. Nowhere in her column does she claim it's "huge majority."

But at least you stopped trying to argue that "majority" isn't "most."

[yardwork]

73. Elections are won and lost by a single vote.

Most white people vote Republican, year after year. You and your family disagree with those voters. So do I. Let's figure out how to turn this around.

We can't fix it if we don't acknowledge the problem. Clearly, you're on the side of good. How do we convince the rest of "the white community?"

[StarfishSaver]

69. A majority, regardless how "slim" it may be, is "most."

That's what "most" means.

[BusyBeingBest]

71. Dumb article. She winds up by saying that black and Latino voters

aren't a monolith and are more complex and act more independently, all after painting white women as...a monolith. AND relying on exit polls that aren't accurate this year. They must have had extra space to fill at the WaPo yesterday.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

74. There's a lot to unpack in the resistance these kinds of articles generate.

[radius777]

75. Great article. The media loves to scapegoat the base,

ie AOC/BLM, but it was Dems' fixation both in '16 and '20 on white moderates that led to bland/insecure messaging, while failing to defend the base and explain their very real concerns about big issues. All of which allowed the GOP to frame the race on their terms. The GOP has a far more extreme base yet don't apologize for it. Voters tend to vote for the party that seems confident and proud of itself.

[lame54]

77. RepubliKarens

[BainsBane]

78. And white men vote Republican in even greater margins

but somehow white men love nothing better than to point fingers are white women.


Whether white women really voted Republican depends on the reliability of exit polls, which we have no reason to believe are any more reliable than the pre-election polls. But we don't need polls to know that the great majority of white men vote Republican. They always do.