WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the 2024 presidential election coverage focuses on the words and actions of two men with very different ideologies, political strategists are watching for signs from a much different barometer.
“You will have women deciding the vote this election,” says Roma Daravi, a former communications official in the Trump White House. “We’ve seen that Biden’s approval rating across the board is plummeting and it’s no different when it comes to women.”
If that shift takes place in the suburbs, it would be an answer to prayer for the Trump Campaign. In 2020, he lost the suburban women voting bloc by a large 13 point margin: 56-43 percent.
Polls today, however show President Joe Biden leading by only six points among women in the suburbs. That’s not a good sign for Democrats considering that over the last decade they have consistently performed strong with suburban women. In 2014, they won 47 percent; that grew 4 points to 51 percent in the 2016 presidential election. And by 2020, they hit a high-water mark of 56 percent.
GOP strategist Alice Stewart looks at one factor that could turn the tide.
“When you talk to suburban women, they’re concerned about pocketbook issues,” Stewart tells CBN News. “Joe Biden has a record. The problem for him is that it’s broken on key issues that voters are concerned with… Suburban Women voters are the ones that buy the groceries and often put gas in the tank. And when those bills are high, they’re frustrated. They feel it, they feel it firsthand.”
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The Biden campaign is working to turn attention in another direction: specifically, abortion. A recent campaign ad that targets Trump says, “It was Donald Trump who ripped away the rights of freedom of women in America…we’ll teach Donald Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans a valuable lesson: don’t mess with the women of America.”
It could be a successful tactic. While immigration and the economy are major political problems for Biden, a Wall Street Journal poll shows abortion as the number one issue—by far—for suburban women voters in swing states. It comes in at 39 percent, more than double that of immigration at 16 percent and then the economy falls to a meager 7 percent.
“It’s almost laughable that the Democrats and Joe Biden have this huge pro-abortion stance when they can’t even define what is a woman,” Roma Daravi tells CBN News. “How can you be for women when you can’t define what a woman is?”
Still, the GOP knows this has not been a winning issue for them politically, since the end of Roe v Wade. To that end, Trump has shied away from talk of abortion bans. “There has to be a way to thread that needle in terms of Donald Trump remaining steadfast and pro-life, but to appeal to the independent suburban voters that want to see abortion access,” GOP Strategist Alice Stewart says.
Another possible key for Trump would be winning over some of those suburban women labeled, ‘hold your nose voters.’ “I think the fear is the choices will come down to Donald Trump, Joe Biden or the couch,” Stewart tells CBN News.
That’s why come election night, both campaigns will watch key suburbs in swing states. In the primary, Nikki Haley did much better than Trump with women in the suburbs around Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Atlanta.
“If Nikki Haley was able to pull in some new voters to the Republican Party, then kudos to her because at the end of the day, we always knew they would be voting for President Trump come the finish line,” Daravi says.
That remains to be seen. But what’s certain, according to Daravi, is that suburban women voters will be key to who occupies the White House next year. “Women are smart. We’re out here running the world and I think we’re definitely going to have a say in this upcoming election.”