DETROIT — Suburban women were a critical voting bloc for Joe Biden in the 2020 election — and they could play a big role again in key swing states.
Marcie Paul is the organizer of Fems for Dems, a group that was created in early 2016 when the founder sent an email to her friends saying she planned to help elect the first female president. After Hillary Clinton lost that election, the group turned its attention to ousting then-President Donald Trump from the White House in 2020.
“Trump is revolting,” Paul said, adding that he thinks Biden is doing better than he expected.
As Biden struggles in recent polls among several demographics, his pitch to suburban women that he is best positioned to fight threats to democracy and protect abortion rights could be an important campaign effort to secure his re-election.
Into The latest national NBC News poll, Biden leads women by 10 percentage points (50% to 40%) over Trump. When it comes to suburban women, his lead drops to 6 percentage points (49% to 43%). And the two are mostly tied among white suburban women (Trump 47%, Biden 46%).
“He doesn’t excite people the way Obama did,” Paul said of Biden. “But fear is a great motivator.”
The fear he refers to is the fear that Trump will take back the White House. The NBC News survey in a hypothetical matchup, within the margin of error, Trump led Biden by 5 percentage points.
Biden is trying to address this fear. Her campaign’s Michigan ad focused on reproductive rights, featuring a Texas woman who described having to carry her fetus to term despite being diagnosed with a terminal illness.
“It’s every woman’s worst nightmare,” said the woman in Roe v. He blames Trump for dropping the Wade case.
A Biden campaign official said the campaign has spent seven figures so far on paid advertising in Michigan.
Still, the campaign faces numerous obstacles in the state. The coalition that supported Biden in 2020 is threatening to collapse this time. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult A poll last week showed Biden leading Trump 47% to 42% among registered voters in Michigan, which was within the poll’s margin of error. The poll raises red flags for Democrats, even though it’s in a general election race that won’t happen for months and could change a lot.
After the Israel-Hamas war, Arab American support for Biden declined well documented. There is as well an all-out boost securing the desired approval of the United Auto Workers union. Still, a growing number of blue-collar workers support Trump.
“I truly believe he (Trump) wants what’s best for the American worker,” said UAW member Scott Malemphant, referring to Biden’s support for electric vehicles, which Malemphant believes could threaten auto jobs. Trump also met with Teamsters leadership in Washington this week as he seeks to wipe out union votes across the country.
Still, Biden so far appears to be the preferred choice for suburban women in Michigan. According to the same Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll, 47% of them prefer Biden and 40% prefer Trump.
But in Michigan, the Biden administration’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war is also threatening its support among some Arab American women. Lori-Kamleh Ajlouny, a mother of four, lives in Birmingham, Detroit, and said the U.S. is complicit in the genocide because of its strong support for Israel, despite increasing casualties in Gaza.
“I’m not going to vote for President Biden,” he said, even though he’s supporting him in 2020. Instead of “Cease fire. Free Palestine”.
“I’m heartbroken,” she said. “I’m so hurt it feels like a betrayal.”