Exclusive | GOP ads miss the mark with women, independents, conservative activist Heather Higgins tells Pod Force One
Republican candidates are missing the mark with messaging when it comes to women and independent voters, conservative activist Heather Higgins argued in the latest episode of “Pod Force One.” Higgins, CEO of Independent Women’s Voice, said Republicans should take lessons from President Trump and former President Ronald Reagan to learn how to communicate effectively with women and swing voters. “Women are, from the data I’ve seen, 53%, sometimes they even say 54% of the electorate,” Higgins told “Pod Force One” host Miranda Devine.“They tend to vote at a 10-point higher rate than a man does.
So, you would think that your focus would be a lot on this larger slice of the electorate that votes more than the males do, but … the Republican messaging tends to not be focused on that.” Women, Higgins continued, “really object to being told what to think, and if you think about the standard Republican ad, it kind of hits you over the head with a sledgehammer telling you what to think.” “That does not work with women, but that’s how the GOP tends to talk,” she lamented. The longtime conservative activist and businesswoman noted that “it’s not just women” who think this way. “We have a lot of data that shows that if you’re talking to men who self-describe as independents, they don’t want to be told what to think either,” Higgins said.“You have to figure out some other way to communicate with them that you allow them to make up their own minds about things.”Higgins’ remarks come as Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is under fire for running a controversial ad featuring his opponent Amy Acton’s long-estranged mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter a “liar’ as she urges Ohioans not to vote for her.
Acton said her mother’s husband sexually abused her as a child while Arthur stood by her alleged rapist.The ad was widely criticized, including by Democrats and Republicans, with Acton’s brot...