Why did so many female voters turn to Trump?

Women voters show their support for the President-elect as he arrives to speak during a campaign rally on November 4, in Raleigh, North Carolina. AP

Last summer, at the height of Olympic frenzy in Paris, I had dinner with a woman who stunned me halfway through our first course by saying she was a financial donor to president-elect Donald Trump.

Trying to put any judgment aside, I asked her why she supported a man who was a renowned misogynist and who a court found guilty of sexual abuse.

“He’s no friend to women,” I said, also pointing out his role in reversing Roe v Wade, the landmark decision of the US Supreme Court that guaranteed American women’s right to an abortion.

The same way a certain generation remember exactly where they were when president John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, I remember precisely where I was when I heard the announcement that Roe v Wade was overturned, in June 2022.

It was 7am, and I was in the kitchen preparing my son’s school breakfast. Then I heard Mr Trump’s distinctive tones: “After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone.”

Back to my dining companion, the Trump donor. Her reason for solidly backing Mr Trump? She didn’t believe the rape allegations or the felonies, but she did believe he was brilliant on the economy.

“He also listens to people, he takes advice from solid advisers around him and he’s good company,” she said. She told me that if I met him, I would have a thoroughly good time. I bet, I countered.

Apparently, other women agreed with her. We thought that Kamala Harris would be the first female president of the United States. We thought she would get votes from progressive liberals and most of the women. But no, while American women “largely” favoured Kamala Harris, it was still not enough to get her elected.

Ms Harris had bet on women voters because of Roe v Wade, and she made it a logical major point in her campaign. She also was a more appealing candidate than Hillary Clinton who ran in 2016, and with whom many women could not identify.

Ms Clinton distanced herself from women with her 1992 comment: "I suppose I could have stayed home, baked cookies and had teas." The flippant remark outraged many voters, who saw Ms Clinton as arrogant and mocking stay-at-home wives and mums.

Ms Harris was warmer. She has a friendly smile, more charisma than Ms Clinton. But in the end, only half of her voters were women. Mr Trump still got 43 per cent of the female vote, in addition to cutting into the traditional Democratic vote of Latino voters.

Who were those 43 per cent Trump women? Weren’t they listening to E Jean Carroll back in May 2023, when she sued Mr Trump and was awarded $5 million in a judgment making him liable for sexually abusing her in 1996?

The rape claim was rejected but Mr Trump was held “responsible” for sexual abuse – a perplexing judgment, even for his lawyers. Still, Ms Carroll was one of more than a dozen women accusing Mr Trump of sexual assault or harassment. Mr Trump has denied charges, saying he never encountered Ms Carroll.

If the 2024 American presidential election does one thing, it will force us to abandon conventional political wisdom and assumptions. Not all women voted for a female candidate: suburban women with traditional values voted for Mr Trump. Wealthy women voted for him. Blue state women voted for him. Not all black people voted for a black candidate: the urban vote around Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee went towards Mr Trump. And Latino men – despite Mr Trump’s previous slurs against migrants from Latin America – were part of his coalition that helped get him into office. But women voting for Mr Trump still shocks me. Kamala Harris promised she would protect women’s right to choose. Part of Mr Trump’s platform was also to “protect” women. But how?

I have met other female Trump voters, and the demographic is not what you would expect: they weren’t the female equivalent of a Proud Boy. They were Upper East Side Manhattanites who had second homes in either Aspen or East Hampton (and some had third homes in France). They wanted to protect their way of life – that is, pay as little tax as possible and beat the system with huge tax cuts for businesses.

By and large, they don’t care much about social welfare, Gaza, Ukraine, migrants or past allegations against Mr Trump. It is about maintaining their bank accounts.

“It’s about the economy, stupid,” one former female banker lectured me, quoting James Carville, former president Bill Clinton’s political strategist. Yes, but, I argued back – didn’t Donald Trump file for bankruptcy six times? How does that make him a good businessman? (She declined to answer). "I think women's health care is extremely important to women, but obviously the economy was important," Sarah Chamberlain, chief executive of Republican Mainstream Partnerships, an NGO supporting Republican politicians, told National Public Radio. "And frankly, I think Harris was probably not the best candidate…[US President Joe] Biden steps off, then they kind of anoint her…and a lot of people didn't care for that…”

Other – usually older – women told me bluntly on a recent trip to New York and Washington: “I still don’t think a woman can run the country” – this from an 81-year old. Another, younger companion said: “A lady just isn’t right in the White House. Call me old-fashioned, but I still think Trump will be a better leader.”

This is all depressing to me, but are there lessons learnt? What can Ms Harris’s defeat teach us to do better for future elections? Twice in eight years, a woman has been unable to break a 248-year-old glass ceiling: the US presidency. The Democrats have lost two presidential elections with women on the ticket against Mr Trump. It is highly improbable they will give a third woman a chance, unless she is guaranteed to win, in 2028.

I do believe had Ms Harris separated herself from Mr Biden, had she had more time and didn’t have his scorched earth legacy from Gaza, she would have stood a better chance, at least with the popular vote, which Mr Trump won this time round but lost in 2016.

But to me, all of this means we Americans need to get back to work to break that glass ceiling. Those of us in a position to do so need to enable and support female politicians, identify more young leaders and mentor them. When people finally cast a vote because of substance of the individual – rather than gender, we will know we have been succeeded. But we are still a long way off.