A pro-Harris campaign ad encouraging women to break with their Trump-supporting parters at the ballot box is striking a nerve amid signs of a growing national gender gap in the high-stakes presidential race.
Vote Common Good, which encourages Evangelical and Catholic voters to break from the GOP, aired an ad voiced by actress Julia Roberts reminding women “you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know” -- prompting pushback from several prominent conservatives who criticized it for calling on wives to lie to their husbands.
Polls show a significant gap, with Harris winning over a large majority of female voters and Trump building up a huge advantage with male voters.
This difference would get attention in any presidential cycle, but feels all the more important in the first presidential contest to take place since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
“It's definitely significant and has the potential of being historic,” explained Jackie Payne, the founder and executive director of the nonpartisan, moderate women-focused group Galvanize Action, said of the gender gap.
“When I'm looking at the data, what I see is, if only men voted, Trump would win,” said Payne, adding that “women are making this a competitive election.”
In the 30-second ad featuring Roberts, a couple are at a polling place when a man prompts his female partner, presumably after voting, “your turn honey.”
The woman, wearing a hat with a bedazzled American flag on it, is seen walking to her voting booth where she weighs voting between Vice President Harris and former President Trump.
She looks up at another woman voting in front of her and the two exchange a knowing glance, before marking her ballot for Harris.
In the background, Roberts invokes the issue of abortion rights in her voice over. “In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote anyway you want, and no one will ever........