Why SCHOULD THEY?
Trump has tried to appeal to “the suburban housewives of America,” as he called them. Embracing fear and deploying dog whistles, he has argued that Black Lives Matter protesters will bring crime, low-income housing will ruin property values, suburbs will be abolished. Campaigning in Pennsylvania last week, he begged: “Suburban women, will you please like me?”
There’s no sign all this is working. Some recent polls show Biden winning support from about 60% of suburban women. In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won 52%, according to an estimate by the Pew Research Center.
Talk to women across suburban Michigan, and you’ll find ample confirmation: the lifelong Republican who says her party has been commandeered by cowards. The Black executive who fears for the safety of her sons. The Democrat who voted for Trump in 2016 but now describes him as “a terrible person.”
Together, they create a powerful political force….
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“Women are pragmatic voters,” said Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer. “We care about our kids. We care about our parents. We care about economic security. And so candidates who stand up for those values and show that they can be good, decent human beings is something I know resonates. And I think this moment, with this White House, that is more acute than ever.”
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Trump’s pitch to try to reclaim suburban female voters relies on an airbrushed version of America’s past. He has warned that “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American dream.” He revoked an Obama-era housing initiative meant to curtail racial segregation, claiming that property values would diminish, crime would rise and suburbs would “go to hell.”
“I think if this were 1950, his message would be perfect,” said Karyn Lacy, a sociologist at the University of Michigan. “The problem is it’s not 1950.”
Trump’s description of the suburbs seems to Alison Jones like nostalgia for “a `Leave it to Beaver’ time” when people who look like her could not have lived in her subdivision, where no house costs less than $1 million….
image….Lori Goldman, talks with a voter while canvassing in Troy, Mich., Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Goldman spends every day door knocking for Democrats in Oakland County, an affluent Detroit suburb….AP Photo/Paul Sancya