In a a poor omen for his re-election, Donald Trump is hemorrhaging support from the women who voted for him in 2016.

That was among the findings from several focus groups held by the nonprofit Democracy Corps and teachers’ union American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Two-thirds of the people in these focus groups had voted for Trump in 2016, but almost half now were open to voting for someone else in 2020. 

Trump’s combined focus on trade and immigration consolidated the men, but not the women. 

It wasn’t a discussion of Trump’s failures as president or even a full understanding of Democratic platforms that moved the needle. People were simply fed up with the president’s inability to work with others and his rhetoric which makes everything about himself, according to an announcement of the focus group results.

That includes efforts by Trump and other Republicans to label all Democrats as “socialists.”

That effort appears to be backfiring, at least among women who used to back Trump. These women see Trump calling “socialist” as needless name-calling.

“The women reacted particularly negtively and view Trump as mainly responsible for the division, which several called a ‘war,'” according to a memo Democracy Corps distributed to explain the focus group results.

Democracy Corps and AFT held their focus groups in early June with white working class voters outside metropolitan areas: in Bangor in Maine’s Second Congressional District; in Oak Creek, Wis.; and in rural communities in Clark County outside of Las Vegas, Nev. The participants were weak Republicans and independents, two-thirds of whom had voted for Trump in 2016.

Read the full memo here →