‘It’s so disastrous’: MAGA husbands freak out that wives may be secretly voting for Kamala Harris

When you’re a star, Donald Trump has said more than oncewomen will let you do whatever you want to them. As president, that meant putting three right-wing justices on the Supreme Court and stripping half the country of a constitutional right, allowing people like him — their self-proclaimed “protector” — to have the final say on what every woman do with her body.

“I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not,” the former president claimed at a campaign stop on Wednesday. “I will protect them.”

Women, it turns out, don’t care about this – at least a large majority of them. While millions will still vote for the Republican nominee, perhaps hating immigrants more than they love reproductive rights, the only certainty at this point is that many millions more will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. In the latest ABC News/Ipsos national opinion pollThe Democrat enjoyed a 14% advantage with women over Trump; among women with a university degree, this figure rose to 23%; among female voters under 40, it rose to 34%.

According to the Brookings Institution, Harris’ strength among women angry about the Dobbs decision in 2022 may explain why Democrats are polling better than Republicans among older voters for the first time in ages. The think tank’s Michael Hais and Morley Winograd noticed itAccording to the ABC News/Ipsos poll, there has been a 10-point swing to Harris among voters over 65 compared to 2020.

“Some observers believe this shift is driven by ‘Boomer feminist revenge’ among the women of the famous generation, all of whom are now over 65 but who cut their political teeth fighting for equality when they were much younger,” Hais and Winograd wrote. Younger voters may be angry at losing a right they never lived without, but older people have seen hard-fought progress roll back. They are also the most reliable group of voters – and they tend to vote early.

In battleground states, that seems to be exactly what happens. According to an analysis of early voting numbers from Politico, women account for 55% of all ballots cast so far in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

This, in turn, causes some MAGA commentators to break from their usual attitude of feigned confidence into outright panic.

“Early voting has been disproportionately female,” Charlie Kirk, head of Turning Point USA and helping lead the Trump campaign’s get out of the voting effortposted on social media. “If men stay at home, Kamala is president. It’s that simple.” (Kirk, trying to motivate these voters, offered Orwellian misogyny: “If you want a vision of the future, if you don’t vote, imagine Kamala’s voice cackling forever.”)

The line that women voters can cost Trump another term could just be a scare tactic to motivate other men who hate women. After all, Democrats often raise money and motivate their own voters by warning that an election is about to be lost.

But speaking with former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, Kirk seemed genuinely upset that women could vote for Harris in massive numbers — and lie to their controlling husbands about it.

“It’s so repulsive. It’s so catastrophic. It’s the embodiment of the downfall of the American family. I think it’s so ugly. I just think it’s so sickening,” Kirk saidkicked off a new ad, produced by a liberal Christian organization, in which Julia Roberts reminds women that how to vote doesn’t need to be shared with some emotionally stunted man who would throw a fit. (“It’s the same as having an affair,” Fox News’ Jesse Watters commented on the ad. “It violates the sanctity of our marriage.”)

The exaggerated reaction to the ad – simply reminding people that in a democracy votes are secret – could be read as something other than total confidence. And while early voting numbers shouldn’t be confused with final tallies, there is data to back up the GOP’s concern.

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In Pennsylvania, more than 1.6 million ballots have already been cast, according to data compiled by NBC News. In a state with more than 8.8 million registered voters, that’s not enough to have decided the election already. However, it does indicate an early but big difference when it comes to gender: so far 56% of postal votes cast have come from women, a 13% advantage over men.

That hole is about the same as it was seen in 2020. In 2024, however, the Republicans have been very encouraging their supporters to vote early, a campaign that has closed the gap between parties: In the last presidential election, less than a quarter of mail-in ballots came from Republicans, compared with about a third today.

Democrats hope the fact that the same gender gap remains in Pennsylvania and elsewhere is a sign of dissent among Republican women and others who may have supported former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in the GOP primary (157,000 Pennsylvanians) did itsix weeks after she had dropped out).

Mike Cernovich, a pro-Trump influencer, is clearly freaking out.

“Male turnout in Pennsylvania for Trump has been a disaster,” Cernovich wrote on social media. “Unless this changes, Kamala Harris takes PA and it’s over.”