Kellyanne Conway was on ABC News’ “This Week” yesterday and she took some time to point to all of the women who sided with Brett Kavanaugh.
“A lot of women, including me, in America, looked up and saw a man who was [facing] political character assassination,” the White House official argued. “And, also, we looked up and saw in him possibly our husbands, our sons, our cousins, our co-workers, our brothers.”
As it turns out, Donald Trump read from the same script:
Asked aboard Air Force One about women voters angry about Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the president responded, “I don’t think they are,” he said. Women are “extremely happy,” he said, “because they’re thinking of their sons, they’re thinking of their husbands and their brothers, their uncles, and others.”
The president apparently considers himself something of an expert in the field of women’s attitudes. Two weeks ago, Trump was equally eager to insist that when it came to the fight over Kavanaugh, women were “very angry,” not with Republicans, but with Democrats for mistreating the judge. Trump added., “Women are so angry.”
Now, however, they’re “extremely happy” — evidently because women were so eager to see Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court.
And yet, for some pesky reason, Trump’s assurances appear to be at odds with every shred of independent evidence available to us.
The latest Quinnipiac poll, for example, found that while a modest plurality of men supported Kavanaugh’s nomination (49% to 40%) a clear majority of women did not (55% to 37%). Other surveys pointed in the same direction. Similarly, two major recent polls — Pew Research and CNN — both found women opposing Trump’s presidency by more than a two-to-one margin. This morning, meanwhile, we learned of new data from a new Washington Post-Schar School survey, which polled voters in 69 battleground House districts. The report on the results noted that while men prefer Republican candidates by a modest margin (51% to 46%), women support Democrats by a wide margin (54% to 40%). Donald Trump is eager to tell you what women are thinking. There’s ample reason to believe he has no idea what he’s talking about.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
