Funding for To the Contrary provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, the Park Foundation and the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation This week on To the Contrary, Record breaking early voting shows more Democrats taking advantage of extra time to vote before Election Day.

But as both parties try for the women's vote, well, we won't know who wins women's support until it's over.

Then if the Supreme Court bars colleges from using affirmative action as a factor in admissions, how will that change the color of student bodies?

♪♪ Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe' Welcome to To the Contrary a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, how will women vote?

The midterm election will decide which party controls Congress.

It could all come down to turnout, as is usually the case.

By the last week of October, 25 million Americans had already voted at early voting centers or drop boxes.

Most of those voters are breaking left with more Democrats voting than Republicans.

For example, in Pennsylvania, four times as many registered Democrats cast their ballots as registered Republicans.

Political experts caution a voter's registration may differ from how the person actually votes.

A new Wall Street Journal survey shows the Republicans gaining support among suburban white women who make up 20% of the entire electorate.

The poll shows this group favoring GOP candidates by 15 percentage points.

A major swing from August polls and the reason appears to be the economy.

When asked what motivates them to vote, 34% said inflation and rising prices.

28% said threats to democracy, and 17% chose the Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade.

And a new Change Research national poll of black women reveals they are highly motivated to vote and overwhelmingly cite pocketbook issues, reproductive rights and violence.

Joining me today are former Congresswoman Donna Edwards from Maryland and Nan Hayworth from New York, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen.

And from Prager University, the host of Unapologetic, Amala Ekpunobi So, Donna Edwards, let's start with you.

Who are women going to vote for?

Who's going to get the women's vote?

We know, of course, that breaks down into white married suburban women, white lower income women Women of color.

Different kinds of women of color, etc.. How how are women voting this year?

Well, you're right, Bonnie.

Women are not a monolith.

And so I think that we do have to look at each of these categories of women to figure out who's going to show up to vote.

What we do know is that there are higher registration numbers for women, particularly young women this year that resulted from the Dobbs decision.

These are voters that never voted before.

So I don't think that we can predict what they're going to do, but they were certainly motivated right after that, that Dobbs decision.

There's no question that the economy really plays with with all women.

Women are the ones who are the keepers of the of the purse strings in their household.

But I think that women are also capable of thinking about a couple of things at once, because they recognize that abortion rights are their economic rights, you know, whether they decide to have a child or not or when is an economic decision.

And so if they're looking at their pocketbook and they're looking at abortion, they are capable of holding those two thoughts at the same time.

I agree with Donna very much about the ability of women to keep many issues in mind at once.

That's absolutely true.

We can't assume what people will do, even based in this remarkable year on their voter registration.

And there is a crucial importance to getting out the vote for all of us who care about the results for our constitutional republic.

So I agree with Donna.

I do think that the parental rights movement is gaining rapidly in strength.

And I think that's one of the key factors that's motivating this swing that's been found among suburban women in particular.

A lot of those folks are parents, the soccer moms of old.

So I think that's going to be a decisive factor, perhaps in a lot of elections, especially congressional and local elections across the country.

Do you agree with the polls that are showing?

You know, it was a Democratic cakewalk in August, but here now in November, it's going to be almost like a Republican cakewalk.

Do you think it really shifted that much or is there something wrong with the polls?

This is a midterm election.

I think you can't ignore history and you can't ignore, you know, how unpopular the president has been all year and how every poll showed that people thought the country in the majority has been going in the wrong direction.

So when you take those factors in, I think the Democratic euphoria after some important legislation passed and after Dobbs, I think is kind of misplaced.

Look, there are a majority of women in this country because we know from the polls who don't want to be voting for anti-choice candidates, but they are sick of inflation.

They are frustrated by shouldering the burden of the pandemic, by educating their kids.

They're worried about the achievement gap.

There is not enough conversation about these issues.

And, you know, look, I'm very pessimistic about Democratic chances right now.

I do not think that Democrats are talking about the issues that people really care about.

I don't think people really care about democracy being at stake when they're faced with day to day life decisions in their own homes.

And the Republicans are offering no solutions.

They're not.

They're just carping.

But you know what?

People are feeling a little tired of complaining.

And when you have a change election in a midterm, the burden ends up being on the party.

in power to offer a pathway.

And I just worry that Democrats have not offered the pathway.

We are not meeting voters where they are.

Amala, I listen to talks of Democrats, you know, holding on to the Senate and I think back to the midterm elections of the first midterm elections of President Obama and President George W Bush.

Obama lost 50 plus seats in the House.

Bush lost 80 in the House.

Is there enough strength going on here to to change historical patterns around that much that the Democrats could win?

You know what I'm hearing here?

I really agree with what Hilary just said.

I think there's going to be an issue with the way that they're speaking and the issues that they deem to be important and what actual American citizens deem to be important.

I'm the young buck here.

I'm only 22 and I've only voted in two elections, a presidential and a midterm election.

So.

I also live in Los Angeles.

And while people are talking about abortion and that might be a very prevalent issue I just paid $6.88 for gas this morning.

I'm in a crime ridden city and that worries me.

And I'm looking at the state of education.

And although I don't have children yet, I would be concerned if I had children now and I was putting them in the public education system here in America.

And I think that's what women are more worried about.

And although I'm getting lots of ads that focus on Roe v Wade and the right to an abortion, it's not swaying me like the actual effects that these policies and typically progressive policies are having on my community.

Yeah, but let me ask you this.

I think when people worry about crime, they're, what what's going on is the media are constantly covering these mass shootings.

It's every day now.

And why is that?

That's because of Republican support for no gun control of any kind.

So it's ...

I think I disagree.

I disagree.

So, living here in Los Angeles.

I actually work with police officers here in South Central in Watts, one of the most dangerous communities that you can live in here in the United States.

And we've seen progressives usher in not only the defund the police movement, but also.

Wait, wait, Angela.

That thing has gone nowhere, and there Yes it has.

And there, for example, Jim Johnson, the incumbent Senator from Wisconsin, is is running ads about how his opponent, who's the Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, supported defund the police.

There are very few Democrats dumb enough to support defund the police.

It's a minor movement.

But the messaging is there.

I think what is real, though, it's not it's not really about gun control, which the Republicans have been appallingly hypocritical about.

I think what it is about is sort of the day to day quality of life.

And, you know, these issues are not sort of Democrat's fault And I think instead of taking it head on, instead of really talking about the fact that we have people walking down the street in urban areas who are kind of afraid of the massive homeless population that has been created by, you know, economic hardships and other things.

We we need to have this broader conversation.

What we are facing is this kind of disconnect.

Is crime connected to gun control or is crime connected to sort of worrying about getting punched on the subway?

And we're not meeting voters where they are.

But it wasn't Democrats who let who increased the homeless population.

It was Ronald Reagan who sprung them from the asylums, said they have freedom to and they should be able to do what they want.

And guess what?

They ended up on the street and that's never been changed on a federal.

I don't think this is the Democrat's fault.

And in my view, one of the problems we are facing is that our President is way too defensive about what is happening right now because there are many things that are not the President's fault.

Inflation right now is the Fed's fault, not the President's fault.

But that's not true, -It's actually the world's fault What we need to have right now is a conversation that says we understand what is happening and we need to work together on solutions.

And that's the conversation that is not happening.

Democrats have a story to tell on on crime.

And I think what I see are too many candidates who want to run away from or hide from the conversation.

If you look at the legislation that Democrats have passed, it's true the first gun safety legislation in 30 years.

But it's also true that there was more money going into good policing that came out.

And so I think the important thing is to acknowledge where voters are and what they're feeling in their community.

And to, you know, to come back and say these are the kinds of things that we're doing to help solve the problem.

But to run away and not have the conversation at all means that you're ceding the argument of who's better placed to deal with with crime to the other side without even putting up a fight.

And I think that is a frustration that that voters have.

But, you know, if you look at the if you look at the example of New York City, when I lived in New York City under Mayor Dinkins and my husband, I were in medical training It wasn't as frightening as it is now with the so-called bail reform law that has so handicapped our our judges in terms of detaining people who are dangerous and likely to commit further crimes.

And unfortunately, we are seeing literally a death toll across the state of New York because of that.

But when Mayor Giuliani took office, he and Bill Bratton instituted a quality of life, you know, sort of ground up, small crime leads to bigger crime strategy.

And indeed, under mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, New York became a much more vibrant, much more, a much safer city that invited people in.

That is not the New York that we see today.

It is directly attributable to policies that have happened under Mayor DiBlasio and unfortunately, Mayor Adams as well.

He has not been able to stem this tide,.

I'm going to call audible on that You know, look, there is no question that that street crime has the is the responsibility of local mayors.

And but the resources that they get, the federal laws that they were subjected to.

Look, Donald Trump oversaw the largest, you know, criminal justice reform bill we've seen in decades with his son in law, Jared Kushner, that got people out of jail, that allowed people to have bail reform.

That was nothing at all that has nothing nothing to do with the New York law.

There's just no.

scenario where crime is caused by a single party.

OK, but before we run out of time, last question to you Amala.

Are young people, You know, we have all of these issues being thrown at voters, from abortion to the economy to which, by the way, there is a global crisis going on with the economy, with the war in Ukraine and Russia and crazy gas prices, I mean, as well beyond the Fed's ability, I think, to control it because it's global.

China is going into a deep recession.

So there are lots of factors there.

But the economy, the , is it school?

Is it, is it, local issues like crime?

What is it that's affecting young voters?

Particularly with young women?

I think Roe v Wade is going to be a mover for them.

We saw a lot of young women register to vote in the wake of that decision.

So I think that's going to be a mover for them.

And we know that young women tend to trend liberal, while young males trend conservative.

So I think that's what's going to happen as far as Gen-Z, my generation, I don't think they're particularly concerned about the economy or schools because it feels sort of separated from them.

I think Roe v Wade, like I said, is going to be a big mover for young women.

And I think young men will continue to trend conservative.

But as far as them getting out to vote.

It's kind of hard to tell.

I mean, for many of them, this is going to be their first election.

We see a lot of them registered to vote and a lot of them stating that they intend to vote.

But whether or not that translates to real action, I don't know.

Well, early voting certainly has changed everything, at least from my perspective.

I'll never wait in line and go to a polling station again.

I will always be voting early and so have at the last count that I saw at least 25 million other Americans.

From the midterms to the Supreme Court.

The future of affirmative action is unclear, but what will the Supreme Court ruling actually mean for college and graduate students?

After 6 hours of arguments, court watchers believe the conservative super majority will overturn almost 50 years of precedent and outlaw race based admissions at colleges and universities.

The challenges are to policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

In 2003, the Supreme Court ruling on Grutter v. Bollinger upheld the use of race in the admissions process at the University of Michigan's law school.

If overturned and schools are barred from using affirmative action as a criterion for admission, no one knows exactly what the impact will be on the diversity of student bodies.

Nan, first question to you.

Do you think there are enough young people of color, students of color applying to colleges with great grades and lots of outside activities and high test scores?

Who will get in any way, regardless of whether the Supreme Court takes away the use of affirmative action as one of many factors for admission?

I think there should be.

I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be.

There is no inherent difference among human beings in drive, motivation, intellectual ability.

But there is a difference in the quality of public schools in rich versus poor neighborhoods.

I, I could not agree more, and I lay much of that at the feet of politic and policy.

And anybody who knows me knows that I voice that vehemently.

I think the public school model unfortunately has failed for many reasons.

But the public schools seem to be structured primarily to benefit teachers unions, not even teachers.

They don't value teachers merit and excellence.

And yes, indeed, they're working in our most vulnerable communities under very difficult circumstances.

That is true.

And the great Democrat Senator and scholar Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned in the 1960s of the adverse consequences of the so-called Great Society suite of massive programs.

Arguably none of which have actually benefited the communities they sought.

So do these communities deserve far better?

Yes, they do.

Do these children deserve far better?

Yes, they do, because they do not lack any ability, but they do lack the environment and the opportunity.

Charter schools are vital.

I don't know why the Democrat Party is so opposed to charter schools, but most of them tend to be.

And that is a problem that I think a lot of Republican candidates also seek to solve in these areas where it is important and it is a vital move.

I'm really struggling here.

I am a trustee at Wake Forest University, my alma mater.

And I think this is something that that schools that elite schools struggle struggle with.

And the value of diversity is also about the kind of student body you want to want to have.

It isn't just I mean, it isn't diversity just for students of color.

It's diversity for white students who need to be exposed to other people.

And so I think that it is as it should be, that race is one of many factors that one considers in terms of building a student body that's more reflective of the world in which young people are going to go out and experience.

And so I think it would be a shame to to get rid of these these these rules to overturn this decision, because I think it will be increasingly difficult for schools to be able to use those multitude of factors to make a decision about how they want to build their student bodies.

And frankly, even even under the current rules, we still struggle at 6% of black students in school, even under the current rules.

I can't imagine what it would be.

You don't think college admissions officers at Harvard and and at Wake Forest aren't smart enough to figure out other ways to attract, you know, students of color to apply and get them in?

It isn't just that.

I mean, you can have students of color who come from upper class families that economically could fit in.

That doesn't mean that you're building the kind of diversity that's reflective of a student population that you that you want to have.

And so, yes, I do think that race should be one of a number of factors to consider when it comes to building a student body that is reflective of the world in which students are going to go out and work.

First of all, I think Harvard is probably the worst example to actually be before the Supreme Court because it is such an elite institution.

You know, their endowment is, you know, so many billions of dollars they could pay for every single student to go to school there for the next 50 years and still have billions left in endowments.

So and they and I and schools like that deliberately keep their student body small.

So I almost think it's better to think about this more broadly.

I actually also sit on the board of a university, probably an HBCU.

We don't we don't suffer from worrying about lowering standards or thinking about students that way.

But but it is important to think about the broad diversity of your student body.

And I think a Supreme Court that changes these rules.

It's not that we're going to disadvantage a student.

What you're going to do is just set up litigation after litigation after litigation against universities who are trying to create the best education environment for their student population as they can with the resources that they have.

And so that this higher education is difficult enough, the admissions process is difficult enough to sort of hamper people with this kind of false narrative, that race shouldn't be a factor, but gender might still be a factor or economic status is still a factor are other things.

It just makes no sense to sort of take out one element to allow you to think holistically about the student body and education experience you're offering.

I am very much against affirmative action.

I think it's wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of race, and that is what is happening with that Asian minority that you mentioned.

We're talking about a group of people who are performing well above academic standards and are being met with a lot of struggle when applying to colleges.

Now the average Asian student has to get 450 points higher on their S.A.T.

than their black counterpart just to get into the same college.

So clearly we are discriminating against a minority group.

And I think it's important to remind ourselves that affirmative action was ushered in to make up for past discrimination that the United States put black Americans through and people of color through.

But the black people who are benefiting from affirmative action in this country right now are by and large, large black immigrants.

So people who were never affected by the history of Jim Crow and of that prior discrimination issue.

Look, workforce is not Harvard, but we're a top 30 school.

That is not my experience at all.

And frankly, this idea that somehow or other you can have a completely blind admissions process where you're not looking at a number of factors that a student brings to that student population to figure out how it is that you want a class or, you know, a group of students to be to fit in to your school is ridiculous.

And I think every school should have the ability to consider race along with a number of factors, gender and income and a whole range of factors.

Which is what they do now, Donna.

And that's exactly the point.

It's like you want a student, you don't want a student body of old chemistry students, you don't want a student body of all of all women are all men.

There's very little evidence that actually shows that this has penalized people.

This has become a sort of , That's false.

a consrvative mantra,.

It's not about affirmative action.

It's about thoughtful admissions, creating the diverse education experience you want to offer your students.

If race is thrown out as a as a, you can't even use it as a factor.

Can use zip codes as a factor?

Can you use family income as a factor?

-We do.

-All of those things are used.

I mean, that's the point that Hilary is making.

All of these factors are used.

Why not race as one of them?

Because race means nothing to who you are as an individual.

Gender is a factor.

You don't want a class of all men because that isn't reflective of the kind of experience that you want to expose students to.

And so if all of these other things can be factors, why not race?

All right.

That's it for this edition.

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♪♪ Funding for To the Contrary provided by The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.

The Park Foundation and the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation