In a report on the state of suburban female voters approaching the 2020 election, the Los Angeles Times is reporting the GOP is facing an exodus of women who can no longer vote for Republican Party candidates due to Donald Trump and his "reprehensible" conduct since becoming president.
Under a heading, "Trump has turned the suburbs into a GOP disaster zone. Does that doom his reelection?" the report would seem to indicate that is the case.
According to the Times, the suburbs have been a rich source of votes for the Republican Party until Trump came along, but now women -- particularly "college-educated and upper-income women" -- are fleeing the GOP which also helped account for the 2018 midterm "Blue wave:" election, that saw the Democrats take control of the House.
"The dramatic shift is also reshaping the 2020 presidential race, elevating Democratic hopes in traditional GOP strongholds like Arizona and Georgia, and forcing Trump to redouble efforts to boost rural turnout to offset defectors who, some fear, may never vote Republican so long as the president is on the ballot," the Times reports. "The trend continued in the recent off-year elections, in suburbs from Wichita, Kan., to northern New Jersey to DeSoto County, Miss. Democrats won two of three gubernatorial contests, in Kentucky and Louisiana, in good part because of their strength in those Republican redoubts."
According to former Arizona Republican Emily Romney Sanchez ( a distant relative of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) The GOP has “gone from defending conservative principles to defending [Trump’s] latest Tweets."
Calling Trump "reprehensible as a human being” and lamenting the GOP as morally bankrupt, Sanchez said she has become independent now and is looking at Democratic presidential nominees.
“I couldn’t be a part of it anymore,” she lamented.Pointing out recent election results that saw Democrats picking up two gubernatorial contests, in Kentucky and Louisiana, in solidly Republican states, GOP strategist Q. Whitfield Ayres warned it's not an isolated trend.
“It’s amazing the change, in just the last few years. It’s not any one place. It’s everywhere," he explained.
Of major concern to Republicans is previously dependable Arizona -- once represented by rock-solid conservative Barry Goldwater -- that has been trending toward the Democratic Partry.
"With 11 electoral votes, Arizona is a bigger prize than Wisconsin — a Midwestern battleground both parties view as a key to the election — and the Grand Canyon State is expected to draw lavish attention and a fortune’s worth of advertising over the next year, " the Times reports. "The ancestral home of conservative icon Barry Goldwater and John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, Arizona has undergone a slow but steady transformation as the growing Latino population and a flood of newcomers from places like California erode Republicans’ long-standing hegemony."
According to a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom Christie Black, who voted independent in 2016 to avoid casting her ballot for Reepublican Trump, she can't believe Republicans are sticking by the president.
"Sometimes I want to print out every single one of his Tweets and tape them to people’s doors,” she explained. "I want them to see in writing that these are the things he’s saying. Those are worth tax cuts to you?”
Black added getting Trump out of office is just the first step.
"We would still have our checks and balances. I think right now the most important thing is to get those principles of democracy tied down, get that return to regular order, and then we can worry and get back to squabbling about conservative versus liberal," she told the Times.
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