In the final stretch before election day, former president Donald Trump has made a desperate play for women voters by suddenly re-framing himself as a champion of our bodily autonomy. He posted on Truth Social that his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights,” despite having bragged about personally getting Roe v. Wade overturned. He insisted in an all-caps rant, mid-Vice Presidential debate, that he would veto a national abortion ban, despite his own running mate saying in the same debate that their ticket supports a “minimum national standard,” which is the same thing. And his wife, Melania, suddenly came out as passionately pro-choice in a new, well-timed memoir.
Trump knows he needs to make up ground with women in order to have a fighting chance this cycle. He lost his re-election bid in 2020 thanks to a 15-point deficit among women voters—particularly Black women, who preferred Joe Biden by a margin of 91 to 8 percent. And the polls this cycle are predicting an even bigger, potentially historic gender gap in the wake of the former president being found civilly liable for rape and the fallout from Dobbs—that is, if white women don’t break for him again this time around.
