Why Some of Us Have to Secretly Vote for Kamala

Tia Levings’s recent memoir A Well-Trained Wife detailed her life in a patriarchal, Christian marriage. Her former husband was controlling, physically abusive, and believed he was theologically justified in “disciplining” her with spankings.

Levings suffered a toll for taking any step outside of what her husband understood as his God-given authority.

So, when I saw Levings looking choked-up on Instagram, my first impulse was to be alarmed. But Levings was tearful because she was feeling hope for other women. She’s received many messages from women who are voting for Democrats for the first time—and for Vice-President Kamala Harris in particular—and keeping it a secret from their husbands. 

“I did not have the courage to do this,” she said. “I wasn’t allowed to vote, and there would have been dire consequences on my body, if I had tried.” 

She anonymously shared messages from women who are using the privacy of the ballot box, both to make a civic stand but also a quiet, defiant one within their families. One woman told Levings she was voting for Harris and lying if her husband asked. One woman said she “quietly went dem” because she could no longer stomach Republican rhetoric. One woman told Levings that her mom secretly mailed her absentee ballot to her house so that her husband (the woman’s dad) wouldn’t know she voted.

A few indicated their husbands were voting for Harris too, but they could not tell their families, their parents.

There is so much fear wrapped into these confessions—fear of judgment, fear of having the same old fight again. And, as Levings own story makes salient, the very real fear of physical reprisal from a spouse or loved one.

For years now, our closely divided country has had major political fissures that cracked and broke relationships. Some can’t stomach attending family holiday dinners anymore, after too many explosions triggered by the proverbial “crazy uncle” of an opposing political bent. Some lost loved ones to twisted conspiracy theories and detachment from reality. And some have marriages in which they are forced to follow their husband’s “headship,” denied a voice, and even a vote.

The advocacy organization Vote Common Good has been working to sway religious voters through ads narrated by Julia Roberts and George Clooney. One ad shows a woman in a bedazzled American flag ball cap headed into a voting booth. Roberts says, “In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know.” After voting for Harris, the woman’s husband asks if she made the right choice, and she assures him, “I sure did, honey,” then winks at her female friend. 

Last week, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA suggested that through ads like this one, Harris is encouraging women to lie to their husbands—whom Kirk says probably work their tails off to provide a “nice life” for them—about how they voted. Kirk calls this the “embodiment of the downfall of the American family.” (Of course, he does not consider the reasons for the deception, that some men forbid their spouses and partners from voting differently than them, threatening retribution if they do.) Certainly, some pastors teach that women must vote just as their husband does. Still others suggest women—who are easily deceived and led astray by higher education—ought not be allowed to vote at all.

We may be at a breaking point for some of those women. 

Since Donald Trump first glided down his faux-gold escalator, American political tensions have been exacerbated by years of demonization. Democrats have, to varying degrees, been falsely associated with communism, socialism, and pedophilia rings, amid calls for their being “handled” by the national guard or executed. Many believed it. However, Trump may have been causing chaos for just long enough for some of these formerly right-leaning women to consider an alternative. This weekend, a poll of Iowa voters showed VP Harris leapfrogging Trump, with women—especially older women—driving the change.

Given the gender dynamics of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s historic presidential campaign against Trump in 2016 and ensuing anti-woman backlash, Harris has likely been wise to sidestep most discussion of her own campaign’s historic potential. She’s diligently tried to focus on bread-and-butter economics (making home-buying more affordable, supporting family caregivers, reducing grocery prices, and expanding the child tax credit).

Some moderate and right-leaning women are realizing how many rights Roe once protected, and are turning away from Trump. But it’s Trump’s dictatorial impulses and poison tongue that appears to be spurring many right-leaning voters to put their trust in the Democrat, and any Democrat, for the first time. They overflow with exhaustion and fear for the country; enough that it is worth the risk to cast a vote against their husband’s wishes or family’s political position.

In too many American families, people—especially, but not exclusively, women—have been cornered and cowed into political silence. They have quietly experienced fractures in their families and allowed themselves to be controlled by the aggressive politics of those they love.

When asked recently about signs some women may be voting for Harris and not telling their families or pollsters, David Plouffe, top advisor to the Harris campaign, said, “If I’m surprised by anything on Election Night … that differs from the data we’re all seeing, is that maybe that we do a point or two better with women across the board.”  

In a race with margins this tight, these votes may make a difference.

We stand at the precipice, at which Americans will choose between two very different political orders. Harris herself defined Americans’ choice as one beyond party or candidate, but a choice between a “country rooted in freedom for every American” or one “ruled by chaos and division.”

For his part, Trump has insisted he wants to protect women, “whether they like it or not.”

Fortunately, voting is a form of consent—or refusal.

Levings offers a window into the secret lives of women voters who’ve never voted for Democrats before, who can’t tell their parents or neighbors or husband.

And doesn’t their fear tell us all we need to know about the society Trumpism fosters? One that strains under bullying and oppression.

Some women voters are newly and finally standing in defiance against that noxious spirit in the sanctity of the ballot box, choosing country over party, sometimes over personal safety—as patriots do.