As the numbers started coming out on Election Day, one shocking fact was repeated across the state: did Wendy Davis, who skyrocketed to national fame after her filibuster to protect the constitutional right to abortion, really lose women to Greg Abbott?
Media coverage and exit polling would lead one to believe that it was, in fact true. It has been one of the key figures folks point to in trying to dissect precisely how badly Democrats did in Texas last Tuesday, but, as RH Reality Check‘s Andrea Grimes astutely pointed out, this doesn’t paint a whole picture. In fact, it is painting some women out of the picture entirely.
By claiming that the majority white voters who turned out and voted for Abbott in droves represent the clear choice of all women, Grimes points out, we are neglecting groups of women who vote consistently and reliably vote Democrat, and who came out overwhelmingly for Wendy Davis.
- You’ll hear that Greg Abbott “carried” women voters in Texas. Anyone who says that is also saying this: that Black women and Latinas are not “women,” and that carrying white women is enough to make the blanket statement that Abbott carried all women. That women generally failed to vote for Wendy Davis. As if women of color are some separate entity, some mysterious other, some bizarre demographic of not-women.
Grimes’ point is loud and clear here: saying Abbott “won women” isn’t just incorrect, it is an egregious oversight that erases the voices of women of color, whose exit data tells a very different story.
- Once more, with feeling: Greg Abbott and the Republican Party did not win women. They won white women. Time and time again, people of color have stood up for reproductive rights, for affordable health care, for immigrant communities while white folks vote a straight “I got mine” party ticket—even when they haven’t, really, gotten theirs.
Greg Abbott’s campaign reportedly relied upon a very narrowly-focused ground game. Abbott’s campaign was looking to turn out low-propensity Republican voters. And who are these Republican voters?
We know from their own polling that most women have not expressed much enthusiasm for Republicans across the country, but some women reliably do by pretty large margins: white, married women without college degrees.
Just as the story does not end with the presumption that Greg Abbott won “women,” it should not end with the valid and important point that white women were the ones who voted for Greg Abbott.
It is highly likely that these white women fall into similar patterns with their national counterparts. Not only are they most likely married, they are almost definitely religious. The more often you attend church, Pew Research found, the more likely you were to vote for Republicans in this past midterm. And Abbott and Patrick did not shy away from appealing to the religious among their voters.
But if these are the white women who showed up, who were the white women who stayed home?
Voter turnout drops during midterms, but it is especially true for certain demographics. Young people and women are two of these groups whose turnout is significantly lower during midterms. Couple this with the constant media drumbeat signalling the hopelessness of Davis’ campaign in the weeks leading up to the election and you have a recipe for disaster. It isn’t just that white, married, religious women turned out for Greg Abbott – it is that the white women who would have – and should have – voted for Davis were even more likely to stay home.
