A new survey released this week shows that Democratic women voters are crucial to winning elections in 2020.
A poll by American University’s Women & Politics Institute and the Barbara Lee Family Foundation found 39% of likely Democratic women voters say they will be more involved in this year’s political issues or campaigns. 23% of Republican women said the same.
Texas has already seen high levels of engagement in prior elections. Women represented more than half of Texas voters in 2016 and 2018; both cases favored Democratic candidates. In 2016, Texas women voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump 49-47. In 2018 they voted for Beto O’Rourke 54-45 over Ted Cruz, suggesting that the gap is widening at the statewide level.
Not only are women getting more active in politics, they’re encouraging others to participate. The poll found that 42% of women “encouraged friends or family to vote or get involved in a campaign or issue” in recent years.
59% of women overall voted for a Democratic House candidate in 2018, with those rates even higher for Latinas (73%) and African-American women (92%). Democratic women were already heavily involved in the 2018 midterms, and if they get even more active in 2020, as the poll suggests, it could spell bad news for the GOP.
Photo: Luke Harold/Wikimedia Commons
