NAZARETH, Pa. — When a New York jury found former president Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse earlier this month, it was the first time he had been held accountable for behavior that more than a dozen women have alleged over many decades. But would his supporters, particularly women, care?
Days after the verdict, more than a dozen women interviewed in this swing county in the all-important battleground state of Pennsylvania were overwhelmingly unmoved by the news. Some shrugged it off as men being men. Others dismissed it as part of a broader Democratic attempt to take down Trump. And a few found the verdict troubling but were willing to look the other way.
Former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won a $5 million judgment in her civil case against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation, amended her claim last week, asking for additional damages after the former president mocked her on national television after the verdict. But the fresh allegations are unlikely to change the minds of women supporting Trump.
If the election were held today between Trump and President Biden, most of the women said they’d vote for Trump, citing a visceral dislike of Biden and economic woes as the reasons driving their vote.
Laurie Toth, 54, who works at an auto body shop, was among those unfazed by the allegations against Trump. Outside a Target parking lot here in a White, working class part of Northampton County, Toth said she thinks Trump is held to a higher standard than other politicians.
She said that former president Bill Clinton also engaged in sexual misconduct “and nobody made a big deal out of that.” In fact, Clinton was vilified by the right for his affair with 20-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and was impeached for lying about it under oath. “I think all men do it, you know what I mean?” Toth said.
When asked about the sexual abuse verdict against Trump, Toth said she was skeptical and questioned the timing of the trial. “Why wait til now? I think people don’t want him to run for president, and the government is going to come up with some lies.”
Carroll came forward in 2019 with her allegation that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room decades earlier, motivated by the #MeToo movement to reveal the alleged trauma that she’d only ever shared with a few close friends. She later sued him for battery and defamation after he accused her of lying about the encounter. Carroll recently announced she was suing Trump again on fresh defamation charges after comments he made during a May 10 CNN town hall, calling her account a “fake story, made up story” and saying she was a “whack job.” Some in the town hall audience laughed and cheered, providing a window into how his supporters felt about the jury’s decision.
Melissa Deckman, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, who studies the role gender plays in shaping public opinion, said the reaction by Trump’s women voters mirrors their response to the now-infamous Access Hollywood tape that showed him bragging about grabbing women’s genitals.
“Partisanship is a very strong drug in American politics, we’re willing to ignore or downplay [sexual misconduct] because electing someone from the other party is far worse,” Deckman said. “I do think that after 2016, after the Access Hollywood tape, where he was literally saying it was okay to sexually abuse women, if that didn’t move the needle, I don’t think the E. Jean Carroll verdict will.”
In December 2017, at the height of the #MeToo movement, a public poll by Quinnipiac University found 43 percent of GOP-registered women said they had been sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. The same poll showed 55 percent of Republican women approved of how Trump was handling issues of sexual harassment and assault and 60 percent of them did not think Congress should investigate sexual misconduct allegations against Trump.
A willingness to overlook Trump’s behavior is a dynamic the Republican former president has benefited from since the early days of his political career. As he famously said at a campaign rally in early 2016, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
While Trump hasn’t been accused of shooting anyone, he’s been immersed in numerous scandals. Since losing the 2020 election, Trump has falsely claimed the vote was stolen and sought to overturn the results, is accused of inspiring an angry mob that led to a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York, and is under investigation for other potentially illegal actions like keeping classified documents and asking a Georgia election official to find the votes he needed to overturn the election results in the state.
Yet, his approval ratings among Republicans have remained high, and public polls suggest that, for now, Republican voters prefer him as their presidential nominee for 2024.
Northampton voters, who twice backed Barack Obama for president, chose Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, a victory that helped the former reality television star win Pennsylvania. Four years later, voters here picked Biden by a little more than 1,000 votes, helping him secure the crucial swing state that ultimately delivered him the presidency. To hold the White House in 2024, Biden needs to win the populous swing counties in the sprawling Philadelphia media market, including Northampton, and especially suburban women.
On a recent evening at a Northampton County Republican Women dinner for a training seminar on conservative activism, Mary Eckhardt, 81, gave the opening prayer. “Father God, we ask that you give us wisdom in whom we vote for. We ask that they be honorable people who honor their pledge to worship you.”
Sitting at a table with her husband and two other women, Eckhardt said she hoped Trump runs again, though she worried about him getting through a general election.
“I do like Trump, I like him a lot. I know he could win the primary,” she said. “But you know, he governed beautifully. He did. And our country was running marvelously.”
Across the table, Susan Cowell, quickly chimed in to name Trump as her preferred candidate.
Neither Eckhardt nor Cowell said they were bothered by the president’s behavior toward women. Cowell, who believes the 2020 election was stolen — even though no state found evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election — called the Carroll verdict a “smokescreen” and pivoted to talking about Hunter Biden. Republicans have repeatedly tried to tie Hunter Biden’s business dealings to his father. The president’s younger son is under investigation by the Justice Department for tax- and gun-related violations, and a decision on whether to charge him is expected soon.
Even those who expressed disdain for Trump’s behavior said they would vote for him in a matchup against Biden.
Melissa Dennis, a 33-year-old mother of two who works as an emergency medical technician, said she was turned off by Trump’s ego and called his treatment of women “disgusting” and “trashy.” Dennis, a Republican, reflected on whether she’d support Trump again. (She supported libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in 2016 and Trump in 2020.)
If forced to choose between Trump and Biden, she quickly said, “definitely Trump,” but added that she doesn’t like either and hopes a third choice emerges. For her, it comes down to the economy.
“I think the reason why Trump failed as president was not because of what he was doing, because I truthfully think he did a lot of good for the country, financially specifically,” she said. “But just his ego I think put people off. But I think he did a lot of good for the country. I know, for instance, my husband and I are both very hard workers. We work really hard and our money went further when Trump was president.”
The economy is, by some measures, performing better during the Biden administration than during Trump’s presidency. The economy added more jobs during Biden’s first two years in office than any president in U.S. history, and the unemployment rate is the lowest in decades.
But many voters still perceive it to be worse due to inflation, which rose markedly in the past two years. There are signs inflation has cooled in recent months, but prices are still rising higher than they normally do during a healthy economy, putting a lot of pressure on households and companies.
Arlene Pasternak, 54, who has a daughter and works in radiology, said she doesn’t like Trump’s personality and wouldn’t choose him as a friend. She referred to him as a “douche.” She also said if Trump did sexually assault writer Carroll then she hoped he’d be held accountable. But none of that factors into whether she believes he should be president.
“He’s an absolute idiot. I hate him as a person. I honestly do,” Pasternak said. “But I’m more concerned about the economy and you can barely afford to live right now. I went to college, I have a degree and I struggle all the time.”
