Republicans Enraged Their Wives Might 'Secretly' Vote For Harris
Right-wing Republicans are up in arms over a new campaign ad that reminds women their vote is private and they do not need to vote for former President Donald Trump just because their husbands want them to.
"In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know," actress Julia Roberts narrates in the ad. "Remember, what happens in the booth, stays in the booth. Vote Harris-Walz."
Pastor Doug Pagitt, the executive director of Vote Common Good, the group that made the ad, told The Wall Street Journal that he often hears from evangelical women that they feel obligated to vote the same way as their husbands. This ad, he said, gives those women the permission structure to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The ad has Trump-supporting Republicans pissed.
Charlie Kirk, whose Turning Point USA organization is working on the turnout operation for Trump’s campaign, said it's horrible that women would “undermine their husbands” even though the husband “works his tail off to make sure that she can have a nice life.”
Fox News' Jesse Watters went even further, saying Wednesday night that he would consider it a form of cheating if his wife voted for Harris.
“If I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair,” Watters said of his wife, who at one point was his mistress during his first marriage.
After seeing the Julia Roberts ad, John McEntee, a former Trump White House aide and Project 2025 author joked that giving women the right to vote should be repealed.
“This video has made me rethink the 19th Amendment,” McEntee said.
Trump-supporting “Christian influencer” Dale Partridge explicitly said women must vote how their husbands tell them. “In a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction. He is the head and they are one. Unity extends to politics. This is not controversial,” Partridge wrote on X.
The Republican rage that women would dare to vote Harris over Trump is yet another sign that they still do not understand that women are angry about Trump abortion bans across the country.
The Associated Press reported that women worried about reproductive freedom could swing the election to Harris in battleground states. Polling shows that women are supporting Harris by large margins, while men are backing Trump.
“In modern presidential politics, the gender gap has never been wider,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake and Republican pollster Amanda Iovino wrote in a joint New York Times op-ed published Wednesday.
Democratic strategists added that the male reaction to the Julia Roberts spot is evidence that the ad needs to exist.
“This type of sentiment is likely not new, but it's troubling that they're so willing to be out there with it,” Christina Reynolds, communications director of EMILY’s List, which backs female candidates who support abortion rights, wrote on X. “This is why we are reminding people their vote is private.”
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
