A political video reminded women that they can vote for Vice President Kamala Harris without telling their husbands, enraging prominent conservatives and reigniting a fiery discourse that highlights the central role of gender in this year’s election.
The video, which began circulating last week, opens with a woman about to enter the polling booth after her husband, looking nervously back at him before she makes her choice. She locks eyes with another woman as they fill out their ballots for Harris.
“In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose,” actor Julia Roberts narrates, alluding to an ongoing partisan battle over reproductive rights, “you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know.”
The women then leave the polling booth to meet their husbands, who presumably cast their votes for former President Donald Trump.
“Did you make the right choice?” one of the husbands asks.
“Sure did, honey,” his wife responds with a smile, sharing a knowing glance with the woman beside her.
Though Harris has refrained from talking much about her potential to be the first female president, the video highlights the gender gap that has widened between her and Trump, with recent polls showing notable leads by Harris among women and Trump among men.
Harris’ opponents have used her gender to question her qualifications throughout her campaign. Trump said in July that world leaders would view Harris “like a play toy” based on her appearance, and his allies have suggested that Harris’ political success is attributable to diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has embraced an image of traditional masculinity, actively courting influencers and comedians who are popular among young men.
Gender also underlies many of the hot-button issues motivating voters’ choices this election cycle, including abortion, in vitro fertilization, child care and transgender rights.
The campaign spot, created by Vote Common Good, a nonprofit progressive group that works to mobilize religious voters, triggered outrage from Trump and some of his allies.
Though the organization never paid to promote or air the video, its executive director, Doug Pagitt, said the attention it gained online means it tapped into an experience familiar to many households.
“So many people in that world that I come from, and the subsequent political world around it, believe that women’s responsibility first and foremost in voting is not to have their own voice,” said Pagitt, a pastor and social activist. “It’s to replicate what their husband tells them.”
In a phone interview with Fox News on Saturday, Trump said that he was “so disappointed at Julia Roberts” and that she will one day look back at the ad and “cringe.” He added that he doesn’t believe the video portrayed a realistic marital dynamic, calling it “ridiculous.”
“I mean, can you imagine a wife not telling her husband who she’s voting for?” Trump said. “Even if you have a horrible, if you had a bad relationship, you’re going to tell your husband.”
Fox News host Jesse Watters said on the air last week that if his wife did the same as the women in the ad, it would violate “the sanctity of our marriage.”
“If I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair,” Watters said, a remark that prompted many online to call him out for his marital affair, which he admitted to in 2018.
Conservative podcast host Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, called the ad “nauseating” as he criticized the wife for lying to “her sweet husband who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go and have a nice life and provides for the family.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., joined the criticism Thursday, telling Fox News that Democrats are telling wives to lie to their husbands: “What kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?”
While some conservative men expressed disbelief and disapproval, many online contributed to the discussion by sharing their experiences with women who secretly support Democrats in Republican households, saying they fear for the well-being of women whose husbands insist on controlling or monitoring their votes.
In recent months, sticky notes have also popped up discreetly in public bathroom stalls and on tampon boxes across the country reminding women that no one can see if they vote for Harris.
Several women involved in the grassroots campaign in more conservative areas told NBC News that getting involved in the sticky notes campaign was a way for them to be politically active without dealing with backlash from the Republican-dominated areas in which they live.
The controversy over the ad has prompted some online to draw parallels to Margaret Atwood’s classic novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which depicts a dystopian theocratic regime that forcibly categorizes women and strips them of their personal autonomy. In the wake of the discourse, Atwood shared a political cartoon of women entering a voting booth dressed in handmaids’ attire and shedding their red uniforms upon exiting.
To Pagitt, the furious responses from some men online reinforces the need for the video’s message.
“They took a person’s sanctity of their ballot and turned it into a conversation about men owning the behaviors of the women in their life,” Pagitt said. “And like, well, I didn’t think you were going to make our point for us. We’re very grateful that you did.”
