Women are angry at Trump and his party. And it's not just Kavanaugh

In interviews with dozens of women in the country's competitive congressional districts, the frustration with Trump – and the impression that Republicans have simply yielded to his whims – has steadily increased over the past year and hardened during the Kavanaugh battle in the run-up to the mid-term elections.

Kavanaugh's prime-time ceremony at the White House on Monday evening highlighted a feat for Trump and the Conservatives: tipping the ideological balance of the Supreme Court potentially in their favor for years. generations. Republicans say the feat, especially after the fierce fight for the confirmation of supporters, will mobilize their base before the month of November.

But Kavanaugh's confirmation battle was also a galvanizing force for democratic, independent and even some Republican women, and not a singular one.

It's more palpable here in more than half a dozen California congressional districts that could determine control of the House: convergence of Trump's long-standing anger among Democratic women and growing disdain for the president among the independent and moderate women, who were once willing to give the GOP a chance, but now want a change in Washington.

Historically, women are less likely to run for mid-term elections. But they are gearing up to mobilize less engaged voters at campaign headquarters like Hill & # 39; s in the 25th district of California and that of Katie Porter, a law professor in Irvine who defies Republican Mimi Walters in the 45th district of California. Orange County. .

Hill, surrounded by young men and women from the University of Southern California who were traveling to the North to solicit her, said, "We have power at the present time." It's literally the way we change everything, so let's do it.

Voters like Meryl Cook, marketing director at Foothill Ranch, describe a new sense of urgency. For her, the highlight was Trump's tweets about Ford, the California research psychologist who testified that Kavanaugh had assaulted her in high school.

"That put me on the brink, I said:" Ok, the match is over, I'm totally ready to get rid of him, "said Cook, a district democrat. from Walters who had escaped politics for much of the year to what she called "post-election stress trauma".

"It's been a long time since I could even announce the news because I was so depressed.Now I pay more attention," Cook said in an interview at an Irvine shopping center. . "My goal is to select candidates and help them campaign."

That same level of disgust brought Michelle Thomas, 52, and her 23-year-old daughter, Brenna, to Porter's headquarters recently Saturday at Porter's headquarters, where they were trained to solicit for the first time.

In the year of #MeToo, Thomas found Trump's rhetoric about women appalling. When asked how the voters moved away from the GOP, she answered with a word: "Trump".

"It's the lack of stability (at the White House) .It's the lack of respect for women that is incredibly polarizing and frankly scary," said Thomas, an energy strategist. own in Orange, California. The appointment of Kavanaugh "keeps reminding women that he has no respect for women," she said. "He does not consider women to be equal, all he says in favor of women is only lip service, his actions do not support him."

Brenna Thomas, a recent graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, decided to join her mother during the mid-term election campaign, in part because of her regret for not voting at the university. 2016 presidential election.

The last two years under Trump have been "a brutal awakening, especially for my generation," she said, noting the low participation rate among Generation Y in 2016.

"It's exciting to come here, you have the power to do something," said Brenna Thomas after hearing Porter bring a day of canvassing. "But at the same time, it's the power that must be used to actually be able to do something."

Here in Orange County, where once was a republican stronghold, enthusiasm is fueled, in part, by the proximity of the race and the feeling that the overthrow of control of the House could be reduced to a few seats. A recent New York Times Upshot / Siena College poll conducted in late September found that Porter was leading Walters between 48% and 43%, with a margin of error of 4.5%.

"I think Trump's rhetoric is rubbing everyone in this community," Porter said in an interview in front of his seat. She pointed out the great diversity of Orange County (which is now more than a third Hispanic and a fifth Asian): "It's just not what we are as a people."

However, problems with the paperback are still relevant in districts close to Congress, including this one.

But Democrats here have also been helped by Trump's cunning attitude towards California. In conversations with independent and moderate voters, Porter often asserts that Trump and Walters support policies contrary to the interests of the state. The Republican tax bill is deeply unpopular here because it reduces state and local taxes.

In a politically agile move to show his independence from his party, Porter said that she opposed the increase in the tax on gasoline imposed by the Democratic state and that she would support the Republican-led voting measure that would repeal it.

When asked why women were moving away from Republican control over Congress, Porter, who spoke openly about his own history of domestic violence, quickly reoriented the conversation on portfolio issues.

"Want to talk about women's issues? Let me tell you how difficult it is as a parent to make ends meet and try to save for college while I pay for a daycare. "said Porter, a single mother of three. "It's not enough to check the ballot of anyone whose name is a woman, it's about making sure you know what that person is doing and what they're fighting for."

How the GOP lost women

In the shadow of Trump, the gap between women and the GOP is blatant.

This leaning toward the Democrats is staggering compared to the long-term trend of how white women with a university degree voted in the House races.

Polls at the exit of the 1980s to 2016 show that the best result ever achieved by the Democrats with this group is 53% (twice in 2006 and 1990).

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon told Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair that "the republican woman graduate of the university is over. Trump triggers them. "

Countless national polls this year have shown how women's support for Republicans had collapsed after Trump's victory at the White House in 2016. Even before the Kavanaugh inauguration became the central point in Washington, the gaping gap between men and women was obvious.

Trump was a negative driving force behind these numbers: 60% of female voters said they were more likely to vote for a congressional candidate opposed to Trump (vs. 30% who said they would support a candidate who would support Trump) .

While Trump clearly dislikes many university-educated female voters, Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science at UCLA, notes that the president's antipathy conceals two long-standing trends. term threatening Republicans.

"White women are moving away from the Republican Party, which has happened, and white people having studied at the university are moving away," said Vavreck, co-author of " Identity Crisis ", a new book on the election of 2016.

"People have created this character from university-educated women because they seem to be the main indicator of this decline for the Republican Party," Vavreck said. "But the story is about white graduates and white women."

Nevertheless, Trump's role as a driving force for Republican issues during the polls was highlighted in last year's talks. Many Democratic women were immediately activated by the GOP vote against Obamacare shortly after Trump took office.

First-time activists demonstrated in front of congressional conservative members' offices, including Darrell Issa, a congressman representing counties in Orange and San Diego counties, who finally announced that he would retire and leave a free seat in the 49th district of California (where the Democratic candidate is now in power). according to NYT survey Upshot / Siena College).

During interviews late last year, many moderate or independent women who supported Trump – or omitted the presidential ballot in 2016 – said they were exasperated by the president's tweets. and the climate of chaos that he sowed within his administration.

This year, the atmosphere has particularly deteriorated among Republicans at different times. Trump's clash with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of North Korea has baffled some women. Then, this summer, the alarm seemed to peak among women who reacted viscerally to the separation of children from their parents at the border following the Trump government's immigration policies.

Donna Oberg, a retired secretary from Aurora, CO, 67, said she had goose bumps when she heard the recording of crying young children after they been separated from their parents.

"He just thinks that he can intimidate everyone," Oberg said of Trump in an interview this summer at Colorado-6, a highly divided district of the Denver suburbs. Republicans, she added, "I think they're scared of him.There must be a better way."

(In an eloquent gesture, the super republican PAC known as the Congressional Leadership Fund has recently withdrawn from Colorado-6, where it was intended to help GOP MP Mike Coffman in his race against the new Democrat Jason Crow).

In Utah-4, where Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams challenges Republican MP Mia Love, Loraina Anderson, a 72-year-old independent electrician, said she was turning away from Love. for similar reasons, although he has openly criticized Trump 's speech on immigration. of his policies.

"I'm just frustrated, not so much with her, but with Trump," Anderson said in an interview this summer after McAdams arrived at her door while she was looking for undecided voters.

"It's just devastating, just as a person, lies," Anderson told the president. "The children are separated, I do not quite understand why he loves both the United Nations and the (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin.For me, they are horrible men, they torture and do this and that.In my opinion, he wants to become a dictator He follows in their footsteps if you ask me. "

Trump's cavalier attitude during the Kavanaugh nomination contest became the latest – but perhaps most powerful – rallying point for women determined to reprimand his election agenda. of November.

Strategists on both sides said the November winners would be determined by the party playing the best game of participation. What is clear is that Democrats have a lot of feminine energy on their side.

Sara Tisdell, 41, said the Kavanaugh debate was "frightening" and said she was discouraged to have her president move away from Hill's seat after finding her daughter Emma, 14 years old. the smallest common denominator constantly, and it is silenced in some way. "

"When I was his age, I no longer had the same fears as letting ourselves go backwards," said Tisdell, a Democrat at the head of a local brewery. "I think we have an opportunity for change, we have an opportunity to continue on the path of the future, instead of regressing back as a society."

Tisdell had texted her sisters from the parking lot about Katie Hill and how she had organized the in-camera event dedicated to sexual assault. She does not intend to prospect, but Emma (who can not vote yet) is organizing her friends from Valencia High School to go door-to-door for Hill.

"It's easy to be comfortable in White in the suburbs," said Tisdell. "We really messed up everything collectively as a group in previous elections," she added, referring to women. "No one has said anything and everyone has followed well … I hope this time people will come out and vote."