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FIRST ON FOX: A political consulting firm with ties to Trump has begun investigating the ideological swings of wealthy, college-educated white women who were once considered moderate but have since moved even further to the left, revealing what researchers are calling a new voting bloc of left-wing women: the “Grandmothers of the Resistance.”
“We're so knowledgeable about everything,” one woman said in a Northern Virginia focus group video viewed by Fox News Digital, referring to herself and other women who joined the session criticizing President Donald Trump's “One Big Beautiful Bill.” “When [Trump voters] I’ll start to be personally affected, that’s when I hope something will change.”
“It will be a disaster,” another woman chimed in, while another middle-aged woman added, “They will find a way to blame the Democrats though.”
Fox News Digital obtained an exclusive report in September from National Public Affairs (NPA), the polling arm of US Trump campaign supporter Made Media, as well as a full two-hour focus group session in northern Virginia that showcased the beliefs of 10 whites. liberal, middle-aged, college-educated, upper-middle-class suburban women.
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A 2024 billboard in Hastings, Minnesota, telling voters to “trust women and vote Democrat.” ((Photo: Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images))
The women who participated in the focus group were not informed that it was conducted by a Trump-linked polling firm, only that they had been invited to discuss political topics in a focus group commissioned by another research firm. The researcher leading the focus group told the women at the beginning of the meeting that she was “not interested” in their comments “one way or the other” and that the women “can say whatever comes to mind.”
“Pretty much everything is fair game,” the focus group leader told the women.
Fox News Digital is not releasing the footage or the names of the women, but reviewed extensive recording of the session for the purposes of this article.
Justifying Virginia's 'ugly' racist sign using the N-word analogy
The focus group was organized to examine how wealthy middle-aged and older white women have increasingly moved to the political left in recent years and was prompted by a racist poster displayed outside a Northern Virginia school board meeting in August targeting Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earl-Sears.
“In the year since President Trump's historic victory, commentators have been obsessed with what they call the radicalization of young white men. But a quieter, equally dramatic transformation has swept through another group once known for its moderation and politeness: older, wealthy white women. This change came under scrutiny last August in Arlington, Virginia,” the NPA report said.
Virginia gubernatorial cycle is at the height of the fever: With the election in just over two weeks, former CIA agent and former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger faces off against Republican Earl-Sears. In August, a white woman was seen holding a Jim Crow-era sign featuring Earl-Sears, who is black, as the candidate attended a school board meeting.
“Hey Winsome, if trans people can't share your bathroom, then black people can't share my water fountain,” the poster read, prompting outrage from conservatives and others who called it racist.
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earl-Sears was the subject of a poster that Virginia leaders condemned as offensive and inappropriate. (Winsome Earl-Sears Campaign)
Women in the focus group overwhelmingly described the sign as being written in bad taste, calling its words “ugly,” but also defended it by arguing that Republicans have “already gone too far with their transgender bans.” Another woman used the N-word, comparing the sign to signs from the segregated Jim Crow era of the late 19th to mid-20th centuries in the American South.
“What is the best analogy for a transgender person not being able to use a certain bathroom in our recent modern history?” – asked one of the group members.
Другая женщина вмешалась: «Раньше в отелях было написано: «В этих отелях нет ниггеров, нет евреев, нет собак. This… I don’t know if it’s the same.”
“Like, I don’t think I would be uncomfortable, and I definitely wouldn’t put up that sign,” the first woman said in response. “But this person, I think, was just trying to find a suitable analogy.”
Recent history of white women's voting
The NPA report explains that polling data from the 2012 election pitting former Democratic President Barack Obama against Republican Mitt Romney showed that “voting patterns among white voters and women have not changed much in a decade.”
The shift to the left, the report argues, is not driven by gender or race, but rather by income and education.
“In 2012, college graduates leaned Republican (51-47), while graduate students leaned Democratic (55-42). By 2024, that picture had changed and expanded, with Harris winning college graduates 53-45 and graduate students 59-38. Non-college voters took a different route. Lead 56-43,” the report said.
“Revenues followed suit. Voters making less than $50,000, once part of Obama's 60-38 bloc, have shifted to Trump's 50-48 advantage. Those making more than $100,000 went from a 54-44 Romney majority to a 51-47 Harris victory,” he continued.
The report disputes that the media is asking questions and delving into explanations of “what broke young white men” to move further to the right and help re-elect Trump in 2024, but argues that the question should instead be “what has radicalized rich white women and whether they even realize it.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is seen as a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on July 31, 2025. (Scott Kowalczyk/CBS via Getty Images)
The “luxury” of studying the news
Women in the focus group overwhelmingly portrayed themselves as arbiters of knowledge, reporting that they have the “luxury” of reading news articles from a variety of publications, while other voters were more concerned with the cost of living and putting food on the table.
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One woman in the group said her cousin, who lives in the Heartland State, was a lifelong Democrat who announced before the 2024 election that he was leaning toward voting for Trump, which the woman said almost made her “fall off her chair.”
A male farmer cousin told her that the Biden administration had failed to help American farmers.
“He doesn't know. He doesn't pay attention to the fact that China doesn't buy wheat and soybeans,” the voter said. “He's just concerned about his daily life and making enough money to feed his family. So I don’t think they pay attention to it.”
“I think a lot of times people are just very focused on … how it's going to affect them on the day rather than reading The Washington Post or The New York Times or other things that we all have access to and, you know, have the luxury of doing,” she added.
Scene from the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. (AP Photo/José Luis Magana, File)
Surrendering a friend who broke into the US Capitol on January 6th.
Another woman told the group she turned in her longtime friend after learning she had invaded the United States. Capitol January 6. Shortly after January 6, 2021, the FBI launched a hotline where people could report those “inciting violence in Washington, D.C.”
“She said, 'We were just hanging out,'” a woman in the focus group said of a conversation with her friend about Jan. 6. “And I know she slipped.” “I know she didn’t want to tell me she was in the Capitol.”
“And I said, ‘This wasn’t a damn open house. That’s not true, you didn’t buy Capitol,” she continued, while other women in the group remarked, “Wow” and “Well done for you.”
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The woman said she hasn't spoken to her former boyfriend since and told authorities she was at the Capitol the day of the protests.
“And then I had this whole internal turmoil of, 'Should I go on this website and say I think she'll do it'… I went back and forth about it for probably two weeks and asked some people. And finally, I just went ahead and said, “She was there and I don’t know what her role was, what it was,” she said. “By her own admission, she was in this building.”
A new report released by a Trump-affiliated pollster examined how educated, wealthy white women have moved more to the left. (Getty Images)
A more united future
“At the end of the meeting, they expressed little hope that the country could still find a way back to calm and common purpose. Whether this hope will survive in a culture built on outrage is unclear. But their conversation left one clear lesson. Beyond polls and party lines, the real fight for the future of the nation is over how Americans think, talk and live with each other,” the report says.
The women in the group called on the Democratic Party to find unity and take its message to party leaders across the country to win the coming elections.
“Democrats need to end primaries in favor of the smaller Republican. So what happens… The Democrats vote between two Republican primary candidates, and they vote for the idiot, crazy right-wing guy so they don't have to compete with this real smart guy. And that’s where we get these psychos,” one woman said.
Another woman said the Democratic National Committee must fight everything Trump says, including when the president blamed the killing of Charlie Kirk in September on radical liberal violence.
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“I think it comes from the Democratic National Committee. I think they need to get organized. I think they need a coherent message. I think they need to speak up every time Trump says anything, even about Charlie Kirk. Yes. No one should be killed for what they believe. One hundred percent. But they are turning him into a martyr,” one woman said.
