White women helped propel him to victory in 2016. Now they’re rethinking things.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Juliann Bortz wants to apologize for something she did a few years ago.
The 71-year-old resident of the battleground state of Pennsylvania, a registered Democrat, voted for Donald Trump.
It wasn’t that she was unhappy with former President Barack Obama: She voted for him, too. Bortz, who lives in the Lehigh Valley, a swing area, thought a “new approach, a business approach” couldn’t hurt when she cast a ballot for Trump.
“I was wrong. Boy was I wrong,” said Bortz, who is white. Her change of heart is due to the “lies,” the “division” and Trump’s attacks on veterans. And she said there are friends and neighbors just like her — Democrats who voted Republican in 2016 but are now flipping back.
“We were joking about forming a group, like the, ‘We’re so sorry, group,’” she said.
Bortz isn’t alone: Women in Pennsylvania and across the country are leaving Trump behind, including the white women who helped power his victory four years ago, according to polling in key states. White women with college degrees in Pennsylvania are especially done with him, rejecting him at even higher rates than they did in 2016. And while Trump is still winning white women without college degrees in the state, he’s doing so by a much smaller margin than in 2016.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/trump-white-women-pennsylvania-430165