Revisionist history

The power of women voters has never been more apparent. Neither have Republican’s desperate attempts to win their votes in the hopes that women haven’t been paying attention to their party’s history of working against progress for women.

They are trying to play revisionist history on women’s issues – claiming they’ve always supported the policies women voters care about – things like a livable minimum wage and access to birth control. But had Republicans really been in support of those policies, had they really cared about the issues women care about, then they wouldn’t have spent years politicizing women’s paychecks and access to basic health care.

{mosads}The reality is that Republicans are seeing these growing gender gaps and they know this election will hinge on women voters, so they are desperately trying to shake the Etch-A-Sketch and erase their records in a bid to win women over, but it just won’t work.

As much as Republicans try – they can’t rewrite history. Here’s what their history really looks like: voting this week against the Paycheck Fairness Act (an important step towards ending gender discrimination in pay), voting against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, blocking minimum wage increases, actively trying to rollback women’s access to healthcare, and on and on. Republicans can’t hide their anti-woman records because voters are already well aware. In fact, arecent NBC/WSJ poll showed that women voters trust Democrats to “look out for the interest of women” by a 28-point margin.

Their sudden about-face on a few issues means they must finally be catching on to the looming (and ever-growing) gender gap. Or perhaps they read our EMILY’s List poll in partnership with American Women and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which shows that the GOP’s continued opposition to real solutions for women and families will be a detriment to them at the ballot box.

Our poll of drop-off and independent swing voters in 18 battleground states finds that the issues of women’s health and economic security for women and families are the best issues to motivate Democratic base voters and to persuade swing independent voters this election cycle.

Women are looking for candidates who back real solutions to improving their access to health and economic security for them and their families. Those issues are key for women voters so supporting them will be key to earning their votes this November.

Swing voters, among the most sought after voting blocs, find that protecting a woman’s access to safe, legal abortion and birth control are among the most convincing reasons to vote for pro-women’s health candidates.

Our polling also found that Republican’s opposition to ending the gender wage gap, to increasing access to women’s health and their overall inability to focus on improving economic opportunity will be key motivators for Midterm drop-off and swing voters to vote against them in November.

Democratic candidates, especially Democratic women candidates, have been on the campaign trail discussing these exact issues and sharing their plans to give families a fair shot. The contrast between the two Parties is stark and voters know it.

When it comes to women’s health, drop-off voters were motivated by the chance to vote against anti-choice politicians. A full 70 percent of them found that opportunity a “very motivating” reason to go vote.

Given Republicans frankly atrocious records on all of those issues, and voters’ reactions, it’s not surprising they’ve resorted to these dishonest tactics. Whether it was claiming to support Equal Pay on Labor Day only to vote against it weeks later, or purporting to support over the counter birth control while still really thinking that women’s bosses should be able to limit their health care decisions – this ‘makeover’ is totally transparent. These tactics underline Republicans’ key problem, they routinely misunderstand and underestimate women.

Women know what Republicans have been up to and they aren’t interested in giving them any more chances to implement their backward policies. Women aren’t interested in voting for candidates who don’t think they deserve equal pay or access to basic health care. And they are definitely not interested in voting for candidates who lie to them about their stances on these issues.

Schriock is the president of EMILY’s List, a pro-abortion rights and women’s advocacy organization.