After banking their hopes on white suburban women saving their candidates in the 2022 mid-term elections, Democrats are turning on the coveted voter demographic after a recent poll. The poll by The Wall Street Journal shows that white suburban women have swung their support back to the GOP. Catherine Lucey reports:
White suburban women, a key group of midterm voters, have significantly shifted their support from Democrats to Republicans in the closing days of midterm campaigning because of rising concerns over the economy and inflation, according to the latest Wall Street Journal poll.
The survey, which included 297 white women living in suburbs, found that they favor Republicans in congressional races by 15 percentage points. That represented a substantial shift in recent weeks among a group that makes up 20% of the electorate. In the Journal’s August poll, white suburban women favored Democrats by 12 percentage points. It also suggests that the topic of abortion rights has faded in importance after Democrats saw energy on that issue this summer in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“We’re talking about a collapse, if you will, in that group on the perceptions of the economy,” said Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio who conducted the poll with Democratic pollster John Anzalone. The poll showed that 54% of white suburban women think the U.S. is already in a recession and 74% think the economy is headed in the wrong direction.
Views of the economy among the group were substantially more negative than in the Journal’s most recent prior survey. In August, 43% thought the economy had entered a recession, and 59% said the economy was headed in the wrong direction.
The movement comes as several voter groups are giving Republicans a boost in the final stretch before Election Day. White suburban women were a powerful force in the Democrats’ sweeping victories in House races in 2018, when the party gained more than 40 seats, many of them in suburban districts, and retook control of the House. Democrats had been optimistic over the summer that abortion would help motivate this group to turn out and back their candidates in November.
It didn’t take long for liberal media voices to turn on what had been their favorite group of voters in 2018. On The View, Sunny Hostin compared white suburban female voters to “roaches.”
Popular data journalist Rich Baris calls the movement of white suburban women and Hispanics toward the GOP a “one-two electoral punch” that makes an election wipeout for Democrats more likely.
Democrats are getting hit with a one-two electoral punch. The shift among Hispanics in key states and regions is the straight left, and the swing among suburban white women is the overhand right.
Two blocs they thought were a lock.
It makes a wipeout so much more likely.
— Rich Baris “The People’s Pundit” (@Peoples_Pundit) November 3, 2022
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