MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In campaign ads and speeches, supporters of Vice President Harris are sending a message to Republican women.
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ELISSA SLOTKIN: Your vote is private. No one gets to know how you're going to vote. No one gets to check it. It's not available online. Your vote is your choice. You don't have to tell anyone.
MARTIN: That is Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who's running for the Senate, joined by former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney. And Slotkin is among the Democrats who are trying to win over conservative-leaning women. Here is NPR's Sarah McCammon.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: For many Americans in a divided country, it's easier to just not talk about politics with certain friends or family members.
T: He's frustrated with me that I won't listen to him plead his case. I can't, and I won't.
MCCAMMON: That's a woman we're calling T, her first initial. T is a retiree in her 60s in Wisconsin, who asked for anonymity to discuss how living in a politically divided household is affecting her marriage of more than 40 years. T says she mailed her absentee ballot from another family member's home to avoid a confrontation with her husband.
T: It's not that he would ever stop me or anything like that. It's just I can't deal with the animosity.
MCCAMMON: T says she'd voted Republican her entire adult life, until Trump became the nominee in 2016. She describes Trump as misogynistic and a buffoon.
T: And my husband will say it's just what the media has fed me, and I'm saying, uh-uh. I watched it with my own two eyes. I listened to it. No.
MCCAMMON: One of those moments - when Trump held up a Bible in front of a church near the White House, after calling in police to shut down a protest in 2020 - was a breaking point for K. She lives in a red state in the Midwest and asked that we use her first initial because of fear of losing her job.
K: I was horrified. That was actually when I left the Republican Party.
MCCAMMON: K says she hasn't told most of her family, including her husband, that she's voting for Harris.
K: He assumes that I'm voting Republican. I just listen to him talk about his views, and I just nod my head and go, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I'm thinking, yeah, and my nieces have less bodily autonomy rights at their age than I had.
MCCAMMON: That theme - that women can secretly vote for Harris without their husbands knowing - is repeated in new ads from anti-Trump groups, including the Lincoln Project and this one from Vote Common Good, voiced by actress Julia Roberts.
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JULIA ROBERTS: You can vote any way you want.
MCCAMMON: The ads have sparked pushback from conservative commentators. On "The Megyn Kelly Show," Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA said women who vote secretly, quote, "undermine their husbands."
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CHARLIE KIRK: It is the embodiment of the downfall of the American family. I think it's so gross.
MCCAMMON: But the desire to keep a vote private isn't new, says Eduardo Gamarra, a political scientist at Florida International University.
EDUARDO GAMARRA: People are shy about expressing who they will vote for, particularly in close elections.
MCCAMMON: Gamarra is also a pollster with a focus on Latino voters. He says, in the past, political scientists have talked about shy Trump voters. But this time around, Gamarra says he's seeing women who indicate in focus groups that they're quietly voting for Harris.
GAMARRA: I think we're seeing a similar phenomenon today, and it's largely being driven by abortion.
MCCAMMON: A, who's 35 and lives in Illinois, asked that we use only her first initial because she's worried about backlash from her religious community. She says she voted for Trump in the last two elections, but, after a period of soul-searching, decided to vote for Harris this time.
A: I was teetering on, like, you know what? I don't think I'm going to vote because it was such a hard decision for me.
MCCAMMON: A says she's keeping her vote a secret from her boyfriend and especially her father, a committed Republican. A says she has daughters, and she thought about them when she was making her decision.
A: And as I was filling in that rectangle, it was, like, this moment of, like, hell yeah, girl. Like, you did something so powerful for yourself and for a lot of women.
MCCAMMON: It's impossible to know how many people, especially women, are secretly voting for Harris. But even a small number of silent voters in either direction could make a big difference on Tuesday.
Sarah McCammon, NPR News.
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