“Women get things done,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders told a group of Chester County women at an event for Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick last week.
And what McCormick and the Pennsylvania GOP are hoping these women can do is help their party close the gender gap before Election Day.
Republicans have traditionally had more support among men than women. But this year, polls show more of a gender chasm than a gap. A national Quinnipiac University poll found Vice President Kamala Harris with a 53 to 41 percent lead over Donald Trump among female voters. A recent Washington Post poll found a ten-point advantage among Pennsylvania women voters for both Harris and McCormick’s Democrat opponent, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.
At the Chester County GOP event discussing the importance of women in leadership and the economic future of the Commonwealth, Huckabee Sanders urged the 200 women in the audience to do more than merely vote.
“If anyone is going to make a difference, it’s going to be women. You’re going to be the ones that organize, that go door-to-door. You’re going to put signs in your yard. You’re going to gather your friends and take them with you to vote, she said.
“Unless they’re voting for somebody else,” she added as the crowd laughed.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Ark.) and attendees at a Chester County GOP women’s event on September 25, 2024.
Terry Tracy, CEO of Broad & Liberty, moderated the event. Amber Benzon, founder of Level Up, an organization that helps women become leaders, and Laura Manio, CEO of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry, rounded out the panel at the Level Up Leadership luncheon at Brandywine Manor House.
Tracy said the nation’s southern tier has exceeded the northeast in growth and asked Sanders about a historic tax cut and education reform in Arkansas. He asked Huckabee Sanders how to get Pennsylvania “back on track.”
She said Pennsylvania has the “wrong leadership,” that’s not using “conservative principles” to govern.
“I know how much leadership matters. I know it makes a tremendous difference. In this race, it doesn’t just impact Pennsylvania. It impacts the entire country.” The outcome will likely decide the control of the Senate, she said.
Huckabee Sanders also spoke about the primacy of families, saying school choice and empowering parents to raise their kids, not the government, “makes a difference.”
“We have allowed them on the other side to demonize us for standing up for our kids, standing up for our families,” she said. “Whether it’s which school they go to, letting boys play in women’s sports and take their scholarships away, those are things we should not take quietly. We should stand up. We should be vocal.”
U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick greets attendees at a Chester County GOP women’s event on September 25, 2024.
McCormick also talked about family, telling the crowd he has “a lot of powerful women in my life. My mom was a schoolteacher who, at the age of 50, went back to do a Ph.D. in education. And she took a year off during the Gulf War because she couldn’t concentrate because I was out of the country. My mom has been a huge figure in my life.”
“And then I ended up marrying the most amazing woman in my life, Dina,” said McCormick.
“Dina was born in Egypt as a Coptic Christian who came to America at the age of 5 so her family could practice their faith. Then she had this remarkable career working for President [George W.] Bush and Condi Rice in the Bush administration. She had a great career on Wall Street; she was very successful, and then she worked for President Trump as a national security advisor. So, when we think of what America’s given to us, we feel blessed,” McCormick said.
Their six daughters didn’t want McCormick to run for Senate again, but he told the crowd he felt like it was something he had to do.
“If you believe in America and you believe America is the greatest country in the world, and you believe America is in trouble, which I do… then you’ve got to do it,” McCormick said. “It’s about our kids and their kids and making sure they have the America all of us have been blessed by.”
On the issue of abortion, McCormick said, “One of the things I learned as a CEO is reproductive rights goes beyond the question of abortion. It also goes to fertility treatment and a lot of other things.” Many of his employees were starting families later and needed expensive treatments. He ensured the company’s health insurance covered in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.
While McCormick is pro-life, he is opposed to a national abortion ban, and he supports exceptions in the cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. In Pennsylvania, the current law, which has bipartisan support, allows abortion through 24 weeks.
He’s proposed a tax credit to support fertility treatments “so everybody has access to the ability to have kids.”
Afterward, Dorothy Keyes of Kennett Square called the discussion “wonderful” and added she finds McCormick is “very authentic and relatable.”
Barbara Proto, of West Chester, president of the Republican Women of Chester County, said McCormick “needs to be our next senator. It’s imperative.”
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