Never bring up Trump

Stephanie Soucek is in the middle of a scorching August afternoon, surrounded by food trucks, Ferris wheels, and funnel cake stalls, and she just has one aim in mind.

At the county fair, the 42-year-old head of the Republican Party in Door County, a battleground district in the battleground state of Wisconsin, is urging voters who are still on the fence to support Donald Trump.

When Ms. Soucek first meets Tammy Conway, a Democrat who is thinking about voting Republican for the first time in decades, she talks about the two pricey car payments her family makes, which strikes a chord with voters.

Ms. Conway is concerned about “sky-high” housing interest rates and said Trump might make the economy “a lot less complicated.”.

However, Ms. Soucek does not bring up the most recent round of contentious statements made by Trump, which include disparaging remarks directed at Democratic contender Kamala Harris. Instead, she makes her case for the Republican nominee for president.

She stated, “I try to advise people to focus on the policies and disregard the individuals,” aware that women have historically been turned off by Trump’s abrasive demeanor.

In a few swing states where the election will probably be determined, Republican officials are using Ms. Soucek’s approach of emphasizing policy over personality when it comes to winning over white suburban women voters. This is a crucial vote demographic that Trump barely defeated in his first presidential contest but has since found it difficult to win over.

Local Republicans say they wish Trump would adopt a similar approach against Vice President Harris, whose campaign has been powered by female voters since she replaced Joe Biden at the top of the ticket in July.

The worry highlights the growing gender disparity that has come to characterize the race. Democrats are trying to win over female voters who are inspired by the Supreme Court’s historic decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had established the constitutional right to an abortion, while Trump is courting young men, particularly those who identify as black or Hispanic.

According to a September ABC News/Ipsos survey, the vice president leads the former president among women 54% to 41%, a seven-point increase since the DNC late last month.

According to Ms. Soucek, several Republicans are concerned about Trump’s ability to buck the trend.

Defending a ‘brash’ candidate

According to Karoline Leavitt, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, Ms. Harris “introduced dangerously leftist policies that have left women worse off financially and significantly less safe than we were under President Trump four years ago.”

However, several who talked with the BBC claimed that his campaign has continued to focus more on men than women.

According to Republican pollster Christine Matthews, Trump’s campaign is “doubling down on a strategy of mobilizing the Maga base and seeking to excite males at a level that will overwhelm the gender divide, particularly non-college-educated men, including those who are Hispanic in addition to white.”

According to Chuck Coughlin, a political strategist who works with Republicans in the crucial state of Arizona, the Trump campaign has pushed toward “bro culture,” emphasizing masculinity and drawing a line between “weak versus tough.”

He said, “That appeals to a lot of men.” “Voters who are not affiliated find it appealing.”

The selection of JD Vance as Trump’s running mate demonstrated the campaign’s emphasis on reaching out to men. It is possible that they were not prepared for the negative impact his inclusion on the ticket would have on female voters.

The senator from Ohio has been under fire for remarks he made in the past regarding women, including one from 2021 in which he refers to Ms. Harris and other Democrats as “childless cat ladies who are sad at their own lives.”

These types of comments do not help attract swing women voters, according to Betsy Fischer Martin, executive director of the nonpartisan Women & Politics Institute.

“Many childless cat women vote in the suburbs,” the woman remarked.

However, some strong female supporters—like Door County Republican Dixie, 59—do not find the former president’s campaign rhetoric offensive.

He will not give you the information you desire to hear. He will tell you the truth, Dixie added, choosing to remain anonymous to protect her privacy.

Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump adviser and his 2016 campaign manager, told the BBC that supporters needed his “strong, decisive, and forceful” demeanor in order to support his programs.

“People—women in particular—have a tendency to kvetch, talk about, and complain about things that upset them, and then they vote based on what impacts them,” the speaker stated.

“Many childless cat women vote in the suburbs,” the woman remarked.

However, some strong female supporters—like Door County Republican Dixie, 59—do not find the former president’s campaign rhetoric offensive.

He will not give you the information you desire to hear. He will tell you the truth, Dixie added, choosing to remain anonymous to protect her privacy.

Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump adviser and his 2016 campaign manager, told the BBC that supporters needed his “strong, decisive, and forceful” demeanor in order to support his programs.

“People—women in particular—have a tendency to kvetch, talk about, and complain about things that upset them, and then they vote based on what impacts them,” the speaker stated.

“Look at these groceries that you get and how much you pay,” she told the BBC, gesturing toward a full shopping cart in a grocery store car park.

Strategists say Trump would do well to focus more on these specific economic policy points to win over voters like Ms Juntenen.

“If he dials down the attacks and his brand of fiery kind of politics, then he can pick up…female voters in particular,” said Ariel Hill-Davis, co-founder of Republican Women for Progress, which advocates for female representation in the party.

“If your top three issues are the economy, inflation, and public safety, I think he could easily sway those voters.”

‘Staying the hell away’ from abortion

Republicans in swing states have struggled with another issue that has animated women across the country: reproductive rights.

Democrats have seized on abortion rights as a way to galvanise voters after the fall of Roe v Wade in 2022, while Ms Harris has become the White House’s leading voice on the issue.

Voters in several states, including Republican strongholds, have passed referendums protecting the right to abortion. The issue is on the ballot in at least eight states in November, including in the battleground territories of Nevada and Arizona.

Republicans have struggled to reach a unified message on reproductive rights. Trump has repeatedly said policy should be left up to the states, declining to endorse a national abortion ban that many Republican lawmakers support.

He was roundly criticised by anti-abortion conservatives in recent weeks after giving contradictory remarks on whether he would support a referendum in Florida to protect abortion rights; he later clarified he would vote against it.

The same week, he told a Michigan crowd that if he were re-elected, his administration would cover the costs of IVF, a fertility treatment that Democrats have claimed Republicans are trying to take away through restrictive state abortion laws.

Tom Eddy, the chair of the Erie County Republican Party, a swing district in the must-win state of Pennsylvania, said he’s found the best approach is to avoid the issue altogether.

“I tell my candidates, ‘Stay the hell away from it,’” he said. “I can tell no matter what policy you promote with regard to abortion, you’re going to be wrong, because half the people are going to think the other way.”

Though the KFF poll indicated abortion to be lower on the list of priorities for female suburban voters—behind immigration, border security, and the economy—it remains a motivating issue for a growing share.

A survey from the New York Times and Siena College last month suggested it had become the most important issue for female voters under the age of 45.

With polls suggesting the majority of suburban women support access to abortions, Ms. Soucek said the Republican Party needs to find a unified message.

“It’s just a matter of making sure that we’re sending the right message to women that we care about women while also caring about unborn babies,” she said.

Mr. Trump’s former senior adviser, Kellyanne Conway, said that while Democrats are focused on “the waist down,” the Republican Party is concentrating on the “waist up.”.

“We women, from the waist up, are where our brains, ears, eyes, hearts, and mouths are, so we can figure out all the issues: the kitchen table economics, entrepreneurship, taxes, regulation, and energy independence,” she said.

But that language isn’t landing with all women voters in Wisconsin.

Holly Rupnow, a 56-year-old former Republican from Green Bay, said one of the reasons she planned to vote for Ms. Harris was because of reproductive rights.

“I like the things that she’s going to try to do for us—get us back women’s rights,” she said.

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Letting ‘Trump be Trump’?

Experts say the political landscape has changed dramatically since Donald Trump first ran for president.

Some female voters in 2016 brushed aside their worries about Trump, believing he would act differently once he was in the White House, according to Ms. Fischer Martin.

But the 2016 “Let Trump be Trump” rallying cry would not work now, she said.

During the 2018 midterm elections, suburban and college-educated women largely rejected Trump and Republicans and helped power the so-called blue wave that elected more than 100 women to the US House.

In 2022, reproductive rights played a central role in helping Democrats perform better than expected, raising fears among Republicans it could do so again.

Trump could make strides with female suburban voters by directly addressing their concerns about his personality, according to political experts.

“If he were to say something like: ‘You may not like me personally, you may not like my rhetoric, but if you want to worry less about grocery bills .. I’m your guy,’” Ms Fischer Martin said.

“I don’t know if he’s quite capable of getting there.”

Kellyanne Conway knows Trump better than most. She believes his core message—are voters better off now then when he was in office?—is the same for all Americans, regardless of gender.

“As I told him recently,” she added, “he beat a woman before. He can beat a woman again.”