The not-so-mysterious reason so many GOP women like Trump

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Donald_Trump_hair
Not for his looks, for sure.

On my post-vacay trek to the gym I decided to watch Anderson Cooper as I rode the exercise bike. The top story of the night was, of course, the GOP primary and CNN’s latest poll that has Donald Trump in the lead plus favorable ratings, including by gender:

But there is no gender gap among Republicans on favorable views of Trump: 60% of Republican women voters have a positive impression as do 57% of GOP men. Outside the Republican Party, women are less apt to hold a favorable view of Trump, just 17% of women voters who are independents or Democratic leaners see him favorably, compared with 29% of non-Republican male voters.

That’s a startlingly high favorable rating among women, though not really, as the video from CNN’s Randi Kaye demonstrates. Iowa Trump supporter Heather Halterman feels that Trump’s ugly comments about various women are not degrading and are secondary to her vague conception of the “good ideas” he has for a country “going down the drain” and his promise to protect her two sons from the (again, vague) threat posed to them by immigrants from south of the border. Halterman also likes Trump’s “pro-Israel” stance (who knows why?) and some non-specific things he has said about the tax code and building up the military.

Read more

What’s the matter with Arizona fathers?

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

I posed a question on social media today about whether Arizonans really care as much about education as they say they do, given how the state keeps electing people who are basically out to dismantle the public education system. My guess was that a lot of people tell pollsters they support the schools and think they are important because they think they are supposed to say that but really don’t give the schools in this state much thought because they don’t have any K-12 or college students in their households. That led me to nerd out on some exit polls, which lead me to discover something quite shocking, though not entirely unexpected. I used the Senate race in 2012 because I think it’s a slightly better proxy for statewide voting patterns than the Presidential. (Edited to add link.)

parental voting chart

Read more