Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

For Las Vegas ‘Wal-Mart moms,’ it’s the disaster vs. the laughingstock for president

Clinton and Trump debate 2

John Locher / AP

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, left, and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speak Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016, during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis.

Pretend it’s your prom night, and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are there. What are they like as high schoolers?

“I’d like to think she was open and kind and accepting of people,” one woman says.

“She’s the one I’d want to beat up on,” says another.

“He does seem like he was a very nice young man,” another woman says.

“He’d probably have a different girl every week,” says another.

That’s according to 10 women who participated in a focus group of so-called “Wal-Mart moms” Tuesday evening in Las Vegas. Republican pollster Neil Newhouse and his Democratic partner, Margie Omero, have organized several such groups this election cycle and in cycles past across the country, talking to mothers who shop at Wal-Mart at least once a month.

All of the Las Vegas participants — most of them in their 30s and 40s and hailing from diverse backgrounds — expressed considerable frustration with this year's presidential election and a dissatisfaction with the two candidates at the top of the ticket. They said the election made them feel worried, angry, frustrated and anxious.

“This is the best we can come up with. Like, really?” said Phelicia DeRosier, a 40-year-old who works in sales. “I think both of the candidates are actually so terrible that the only way that either one of them could win is if they’re running against the other one.”

Among the issues the women identified as top concerns: their children’s futures, safety, education, access to health care, and earning a living wage.

If they had to vote today, five said they would cast their ballots for Clinton, two for Trump, two for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, and one said she would choose Nevada’s unique “none of these candidates” option.

DeRosier was that sole “none of these candidates” vote. She said Clinton was “vastly the worst candidate” but that she couldn't stomach Trump, who she called an idiot.

“There could be something on an international level that would make me feel more unsafe to have a psychopath (Clinton) than an idiot in the presidency,” DeRosier said, asked whether there was anything that could still sway her vote. “In that case, I’d vote for the idiot, not a psychopath.”

El Salvadorian immigrant Blanca Murphy, 33, said she would likely vote for Trump. She said she didn’t think Trump would deport all 11 million immigrants in the country without authorization, but that everyone should have to immigrate to the United States legally, noting that her brother was on the immigration waiting list.

Veronica Jones, a 34-year-old mother of five, said she was thinking about voting for the Republican presidential candidate until Trump became the party’s nominee.

“Having a daughter of my own and seeing how Trump talks about women, the absolute misogyny … even if I agree with a lot of what he said I couldn’t vote for him in good conscience,” said Jones, who said she’d cast her ballot for Clinton if the election were held today.

Two women expressed concern over having a female president, one Trump and one Clinton likely voter each. The Clinton voter, who identified herself only as Jill, said she didn’t think the country was ready for a woman president. The other, 32-year-old likely Trump voter Codie Bolton, cited her religious beliefs as the reason she didn't believe a woman should run a country.

Despite national media attention, few women seemed to be significantly bothered by either Clinton’s use of a private email server or, more recently, the allegations of sexual assault made by some women against Trump.

One woman compared Clinton deleting emails off of her private email server to clearing junk emails from her own inbox. Another, however, said Clinton should’ve known better in her position as secretary of state.

Though some of the women were concerned about the comments Trump had made about women in an off-camera 2005 “Access Hollywood” interview, most dismissed the allegations women have made about Trump, saying they were skeptical about such accusations surfacing in the middle of a presidential campaign. (Likely Clinton voters were just as skeptical about the allegations as the others.)

The women also swung left on Nevada’s competitive U.S. Senate race between Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Joe Heck. Five of the women said they would vote for Cortez Masto if the election were held today, while Heck drew three votes and two participants were undecided.

The Heck voters included one voter each from the likely Trump, Johnson and “none of these candidates” camps.

The women all expressed the same frustration with the Senate race as with the presidential race — specifically, that the race had largely consisted of the candidates bashing one another and not enough time discussing their accomplishments and what they hoped to change in Congress.

Asked to rattle off a word or phase about Heck, the women described him as conservative, experienced, a doctor in the military and as someone who wanted to “defund Planned Parenthood.” On Cortez Masto, they described her as corrupt, pro-choice and “aligned with Harry Reid,” the Democratic U.S. senator the candidates are running to replace.

The women also were generally frustrated with the two-party system in the United States. One called the system “obsolete” while a couple said they thought there were very few substantial differences between the Republican and Democratic parties.

“As long as there’s a choice between the Democrat and Republican, it causes kind of a divide in our country,” said 29-year-old China Smith, who makes and sells beauty and wellness products.

A majority of the women also were extremely skeptical about the integrity of the electoral process amid recent talk by Trump of a “rigged election.” Six were certain that some kind of cheating was happening or would happen this election cycle.

In closing, the women were asked for word or phrase to describe “President Hillary Clinton” or “President Donald Trump.”

On Clinton: First woman president, change, and "disaster."

On Trump: “Beautiful wall,” shocked, and “laughingstock of the world.”

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