Donald Trump: Why White Evangelical Women Support Him

Donald Trump: Why White Evangelical Women Support Him

During the US president Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in early February, House Democratic women showed up clad all in white. The colour, a nod to the suffragettes, was meant to show their displeasure with the president’s policies towards women, climate change and immigration. But Trump’s contentious relationship with Democratic women contrasts sharply with the support he receives from another group of women – white evangelicals.

As is well known by now, in the November 2016 presidential election, 80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. That constituted the largest “evangelical vote” in nearly two decades. If scholars, journalists and the general public have puzzled over why so many white evangelicals would vote for someone whose language and behaviour violated key tenets of the Christian faith, the question of why evangelical women voted for him is even more puzzling – especially given Trump’s long track record of alleged sexual misconductand derogatory comments about women.

But the 2016 vote wasn’t a fluke. A recent poll reports that two-thirds of white evangelical women still approve of the president.

Massive Splits Between Clinton & Trump Voters Show Diametrically Opposed Views On Cultural Issues

Massive Splits Between Clinton & Trump Voters Show Diametrically Opposed Views On Cultural Issues

Yet another new poll explores the massive fault lines between Democrats and Republicans, and between Clinton and Trump supporters. NBC's headline sums up yet again the fundamental argument that cultural attitudes -- and not economic forces -- distinguish Democrats from Republicans.  We recap revelations in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. 

More than 8-in-10 Clinton voters are comfortable with a changing America. Change comes in many forms, but most Clinton voters are not only positive -- but excited -- about an American experiment that see self-perceived whites as no longer being the majority of Americans. By contrast, only one quarter of Trump voters welcome these changes. 

“The ‘Culture Wars’ have been with us forever, and they remain today,” says Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

Study: Republican Men See Women Political Leaders As Less Competent & With Lower Integrity

Study: Republican Men See Women Political Leaders As Less Competent & With Lower Integrity

NPR reports on a new study analyzing data about Americans' attitudes toward their House of Representatives  members from 2010 through 2014. Ideally, the analysis would be more current, because the presidential election both confirmed and negated some of these conclusions. 

Mia Costa and Brian Schaffner, political scientists from the U of Mass, Amherst concluded that women tend to think "more highly of female legislators on a variety of measures", regardless of party. Republican men express serious reservations about the women representing them, whereas Democratic men often rate women higher than men in governing. 

The research isn't broken down by education, and I would argue here that high-school educated women tend to be more traditional in their beliefs that men should govern. These attitudes have been explored in depth post presidential election, like PRRI/Atlantic analysis and direct interviews with a large sampling of Trump voters. 

In studying members of the House, and not the Senate, the research results are also impacted by districts that are seriously gerrymandered and representing rigid attitudes among both parties, and also racial attitudes. Within these caveats, Costa and Schaffner concluded:

"While Democratic men evaluate women legislators more favorably, the opposite is true for Republican men," the researchers write. "Republican men are the one group who provide lower evaluations of female elected officials."