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What motivated white women to vote Republican in the Virginia gubernatorial election?

November 3, 2021
What else is each side focusing on?
  • People with more education vote for Democrats more often.
  • Republican campaigns were full of racist dog whistles.
  • Many Republican policies, such as anti-abortion laws, are anti-women.
  • Those white women voted for multiple women of color — including a black lieutenant governor and a hispanic attorney general in Virginia.
  • Democrats continue to rely on identity politics rather than focusing on real issues.
The Narrative

White women (especially white women without a college degree) voted against their own self-interest by supporting the Republican candidate.

White women are unwilling to acknowledge their own role in perpetuating racism and were therefore swayed by the racist dog whistle campaign of the GOP.

White women voted against the left’s anti-parent, divisive rhetoric, and the left is so out of touch they try to explain away their own failed politics by calling white women racist.

The left celebrated white women after the 2020 election for voting against Trump, but suddenly the left is calling them racist again. Democrats continue to be bigoted and hypocritical in clinging to identity politics.

How could a reasonable person come to think this?
  • To people to the left, there are still many instances of racism and misogyny in the United States.
  • The fundamental right to a safe abortion ensures women have bodily autonomy. Women voting against this right are voting against their best interest.
  • White women are unwilling to recognize the systemic racism that remains in the US because it will force them to face their own racism. The right is using this fear to promote a white supremacist agenda.
  • To people on the right, children’s right to life supersedes all other rights.
  • Parents also have an inalienable right to determine what is best for their children. Parents, not the government, should determine what their children learn and how to keep their children safe.
  • We as a country have made tremendous progress on civil rights issues, but the left continues to distill all issues down to race and gender. This is at best prejudiced, and at worst racist.
 

What else is the left focusing on?

  • People with more education vote for Democrats more often.
  • Republican campaigns were full of racist dog whistles.
  • Many Republican policies, such as anti-abortion laws, are anti-women.

 

The narrative: White women (especially white women without a college degree) voted against their own self-interest by supporting the Republican candidate.

White women are unwilling to acknowledge their own role in perpetuating racism and were therefore swayed by the racist dog whistle campaign of the GOP.

 

How could a reasonable person come to think that?

  • To people to the left, there are still many instances of racism and misogyny in the United States.
  • The fundamental right to a safe abortion ensures women have bodily autonomy. Women voting against this right are voting against their best interest.
  • White women are unwilling to recognize the systemic racism that remains in the US because it will force them to face their own racism. The right is using this fear to promote a white supremacist agenda.

What else is the right focusing on?

  • Those white women voted for multiple women of color — including a black lieutenant governor and a hispanic attorney general in Virginia.
  • Democrats continue to rely on identity politics rather than focusing on real issues.

 

The narrative: White women voted against the left’s anti-parent, divisive rhetoric, and the left is so out of touch they try to explain away their own failed politics by calling white women racist.

The left celebrated white women after the 2020 election for voting against Trump, but suddenly the left is calling them racist again. Democrats continue to be bigoted and hypocritical in clinging to identity politics.

 

How could a reasonable person come to think that?

  • To people on the right, children’s right to life supersedes all other rights.
  • Parents also have an inalienable right to determine what is best for their children. Parents, not the government, should determine what their children learn and how to keep their children safe.
  • We as a country have made tremendous progress on civil rights issues, but the left continues to distill all issues down to race and gender. This is at best prejudiced, and at worst racist.

When we talk about voting behavior, we often assume that what motivates us to vote is also what motivates others. But, because we all have different backgrounds and experiences, different people are going to have different priorities at the voting booth.

 

Attempting to mind-read the motivations of our contra partisans is a difficult task — if they saw the world and thought the same way we do, then they’d probably not be voting differently from us.

 

To better understand what motivates the person you’re talking to, try to start the conversation with some of the following questions:

  • What issues are the most important for you when you decide what candidate to vote for?
  • Are fundamental values or concrete political proposals most important for you in politics?

 

 

What do you think? Do you agree with one side, or do you fall somewhere in between? Give us feedback on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or by emailing info@narrativesproject.com.

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