MSNBC host Joy Reid said during the network’s election night coverage that the reason Vice President Kamala Harris wasn’t able to get a win in the battleground state of North Carolina was that White women voters did not “come through.”
Reid was taking part in MSNBC’s coverage of the presidential election results, and after anchor Rachel Maddow announced the call for former President Donald Trump in North Carolina, Reid was the first up to discuss how that end came about.
Noting that Harris needed to exceed President Joe Biden’s 2020 numbers but failed to do so, Reid said, “I think we have to be blunt about why.”
“Black voters came through for Kamala Harris. White women voters did not,” she said. “That is what it appears happened in that state.”
Reid said that North Carolina is a state where women “lost their reproductive rights” and the Harris campaign focused heavily on getting the message out to women about abortion and Trump, but “that message obviously was not enough to get enough White women to vote for Vice President Harris, a fellow woman.”
“This will be the second opportunity that White women in this country have to change the way that they interact with the patriarchy,” said Reid, suggesting that North Carolina women blew it.
“If people vote more, you know, party line or more on race than on gender, and on protecting their gender, there’s really not much more that you can do but tell people what the risks are and leave it to them to do the right thing,” she said, seemingly suggesting that White women in North Carolina weren’t moved to vote for Harris because Harris isn’t White:
You know, if they didn’t make their numbers and essentially exceed the numbers that Joe Biden had in the suburbs. And I think we have to be blunt about why. Black voters came through for Kamala Harris. White women voters did not.
That is what it appears happened in that state, is that if you can’t flip enough White women — and we’ve talked about this on this set numerous times, is that you have a state where you’ve got a 6-week abortion or a 12-week abortion. I think there’s might be 12 weeks, but it’s a state where women lost their reproductive rights, where there was a very heavy push to get women to focus on not putting in place, you know, re-electing putting back into the White House the person who was responsible for taking those rights away. And restoring them.
But that message obviously was not enough to get enough White women to vote for Vice President Harris, a fellow woman. This will be the second opportunity that White women in this country have to change the way that they interact with the patriarchy. And, you know, God bless Shannon Watts who was trying to have that conversation.
But if people aren’t receptive to it and if people vote more, you know, party line or more on race than on gender, and on protecting their gender, there’s really not much more that you can do but tell people what the risks are and leave it to them to do the right thing.
Watch the clip above via MSNBC.
