CNN’s Jim Acosta spoke to a panel of women, where he told them, “Please don’t hit me.”
During Friday’s “CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta” show, Acosta held a panel with CNN’s S.E. Cupp, Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky, and poli-sci Professor Kelly Dittmar.
While noting he is “the guy here,” Acosta discussed with the panel their thoughts regarding President-elect Donald Trump’s gain in support among women.
“The question that I have and I’m going to say it is, are there some women out there who don’t want to have a woman president?” Acosta asked. “And please don’t hit me over the head for asking that question. But, Kelly, I’m going to ask it.”
Dittmar responded: “I want to say two things. First, regarding that, which is, first of all, the majority of women voted for Kamala Harris. And women and men both, right, declined their support for the Democratic candidate. So I worry about a narrative that’s about kind of women lost this election for Harris in some way, right?”
As the host agreed, Dittmar continued: “Ultimately, men supported Donald Trump. And both men and women. And across the board, if you look across demographic groups saw decline in support. Harris underperformed across the board with Democrats. Yeah. And in broadly speaking, for a lot of the reasons.”
“So thinking about it, is it about the gender of the candidate? No,” she added. “Right — part of the reason we expected more women to vote for Harris, I think, was because people thought, well, they’ll be excited that there’s a woman.”
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Dittmar continued:
“We know in every election that gender identity of the candidate is not pushing the vote.
What’s more surprising, I think, in this election, when something we really have to tap into is why is it not disqualifying to have a candidate who plays on misogyny and racism, tapped into it as a primary point of all of his campaigns?
And voters, men and women alike, are still willing to vote for him. To me that’s the gender story that we have to pay attention to.”
More women overall voted for Harris in the 2024 election, with 53% for the Democrat and 45% of the votes for Trump. Of that, 57% of white women voted for Trump, while Harris received 41%. Among Black women voters, 85% voted for Harris, per The Washington Post.
In USA Today’s Ingrid Jacques op-ed titled, “Harris lost because she was a bad candidate. Don’t blame white women for that,” she wrote: “Much like in 2016, I didn’t vote for the woman at the top of the ticket Tuesday. It’s not because I have fear of a female president. I’m all for the idea. But don’t expect me and other women to line up for a candidate simply because of her sex – or any other immutable characteristic. I want someone who will stand for my principles and beliefs.”
“The Harris campaign and her acolytes angered a lot of women – and rightly so – when they began actively talking down to conservative women in the final days of the campaign,” Jacques later wrote.
“If I were giving advice to the next Democratic presidential candidate, it would be to knock off the blatant disrespect for a clearly powerful group of voters who are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves,” Jacques concluded.
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