Why did the majority of white women choose Trump over Clinton and Harris?

Get the Point!

For those unaware, I often enjoy eating alone at public restaurants and "people watching," a pastime that often includes "people listening" when the talkers are loud and boisterous, as is often the case.

Almost a decade ago, I had the chance to “eavesdrop” (as my mom would say) on a group of mid-30's to early 40's white women near my office discussing the then upcoming 2016 election. At that point, the Republican field was large and while Donald Trump had made his entry, conventional wisdom held that he would be the circus sideshow candidate with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush being the perceived frontrunner. On the Democratic side, that same conventional wisdom held that former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would emerge victorious over socialist leaning Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Well, conventional wisdom got the Democratic nominee correct, as Hillary Clinton was elected the Party's standard bearer in 2016. We also now know that conventional wisdom got it wrong on the right, as Republicans tapped political outsider Donald Trump as its nominee to take on Clinton.

Hillary Clinton ran circles around Donald Trump during their presidential debates, but her experience, pedantic grasp on policy, and position as the first female presidential nominee of a major party meant nothing to the majority of white women…

But on that afternoon when I was people watching/listening in 2015, the primary season was just heating up and while this group of white women weren't quite sure who they would vote for, they were unanimous in their expressions about who they would NOT vote for—Hillary Clinton!

Due to my own assumptions, I found this somewhat surprising, what with having been raised by a mother who wasn't exactly a bra burning feminist, but was one who had experienced her own share of glass ceilings and patriarchal dismissals from white and Black men alike during her career—dismissals that made her and women like her eagerly look forward to the day when the proverbial glass ceilings finally began to shatter in academia, business, and politics.

Alas, my assumptions about women elevating women were proved wrong, at least with regards to the majority of white women voters in 2016—voters who may have aligned themselves with Hillary Clinton on issues like gender equity in the form of equal pay for equal work, or body autonomy including the right to abortion, but still shunned her candidacy in favor of Trump, a man who had an extensive public record of sexual criminal/civil misconduct,band recent alignment with social conservatives who opposed abortion rights but to these women, was still a man!

Yes, the group of women that chatted and chewed that afternoon all agreed that they preferred a man to be president because they felt “safe” in knowing that if a crisis occurred, up to and including a war with Russia or China, that a man would be better qualified to guide America through such a fiery trial.

From their conversation, it was clear to me that each was a moderate with some progressive leanings, and they all noted that they had voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 primary over Clinton. And while each expressed that they weren't too keen on Bernie Sanders and his socialist activism that cycle, with one making the entire group laugh by honestly stating that she didn't really know what socialism was, it was clear to me that none was all that interested in voting for Clinton in the 2016 Florida Primary—and it was equally clear that each held favorable memories of Jeb Bush during his tenure as governor and would likely vote for him if it turned into a Bush vs. Clinton matchup later that year.

But alas, Bush barely made it out of the starting gates in the 2016 Republican Primaries and when the dust settled, Trump sprinted through his competition en route to a historic upset of the vastly more qualified Mrs. Clinton in November of 2016.

And while I will go to my grave still in shock that Trump, an unserious, uncouth, foolish man who revels in ignorance (lest we forget his infamous comment that he "loves the uneducated"), I immediately wondered after his victory in 2016 whether that same group of white women that I listened to the prior year had voted for this buffoon due to their belief that only a man, no matter how idiotic, could keep them safe?

This meme reminds that in 2016, Donald Trump made jokes about disabled reporters, Prisoners of War, and families of military personnel killed in action, and millions of people voted for him anyway that year—and again in 2024…

I will never know, but the evidence showed that 56 percent of white women voters did choose Trump in 2016 and in 2024, white women voted for Trump at a 53 percentage clip over another vastly more qualified (and rational) woman candidate, former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Two of the most highly qualified presidential candidates in American history, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, were stymied by the political glass ceiling…

As we have just passed the two month mark for Trump 2.0, and are bombarded each day with executive orders and actions that are stripping away gender legal protections, finding women fired from federal jobs, and threatening to reduce the number of women admitted to colleges and universities as schools turn blind eyes toward diversity to comply with Trumpian dictates, the question is not whether the madding MAGA crowd will turn from Trumpism—they are hopelessly lost sheep who will go down with the U.S.S. "Trumptanic" even as Trump and his puppet master, Elon Musk, get on lifeboats and sail away from the undertow!

Rather, the question is how best to appeal to the moderate white women who voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012, helped elect President Joe Biden in 2020, but rejected Clinton in '16 and Harris in '24 for myriad reasons, be it "safety" in having a man in the Oval Office over woman, or, as some swear on social media, because they felt that Trump was better situated to reduce the inflated prices of food, goods, and services that swelled during Biden's term?

And with 60 days worth of Trump's Executive Orders having done absolutely nothing to reduce inflation, while his inexplicable tariff war with longstanding allies could tip the economy towards yet another Republican led recession, in the days ahead, I look forward to listening, learning, and trying to figure out how to best tailor messages to those white women voters who clearly understood the assignment when it was time to elect Obama and Biden—but who failed the final exam when it came time to elect Clinton and Harris.