Pollster says appeal of women candidates to woman voters is overestimated

Pollster Dalia Mogahed on Friday told Hill.TV that she believes people tend to overestimate the appeal of women candidates to women voters. 

“I think we sometimes overestimate the appeal of a woman candidate to women. We saw that with Hillary Clinton,” Mogahed, director of research at the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding, told Hill.TV’s Jamal Simmons on “What America’s Thinking.”

“Women are really voting for their policies, or for electability. They are not necessarily voting for someone’s gender,” she continued. 

“I think we have to not overestimate the way that just simply gender plays a role. I think women voters are looking for somebody who’s going to beat Trump. I think that’s going to be their primary priority here,” she said. 

In the 2016 presidential election, Clinton, the Democratic nominee, notably lost certain groups of women to President Trump. 

Fifty-two percent of white women cast votes for Trump in 2016, while 43 percent said they voted for Clinton, according to a CNN exit poll.

“A majority of white women didn’t vote for another white woman who was running,” she said. 

There are various high-profile women running or considering a presidential bid in 2020, including Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.). 

— Julia Manchester