CAROLINE GRAHAM: Why this crazy Halloween costume could help predict who wins the US election

With Halloween falling conscionable 5 days earlier the astir hotly contested statesmanlike contention successful surviving memory, it is small wonderment that politically themed costumes are proving popular.

But there's 1 outfit flying disconnected the enactment store shelves that mightiness look a small unlikely.

For, portion glamor-puss Barbie turned retired to beryllium past year's astir fashionable Halloween costume, partygoers tin expect a sojourn from a precise antithetic quality connected Thursday – erstwhile 'The Childless Cat Lady' knocks connected the beforehand door.

The outfits are, of course, a joking notation to the words of JD Vance, the Republican nominee for Vice President who outraged millions when helium claimed successful 2021 that the Democratic Party is tally by, 'a clump of childless feline ladies who are miserable successful their ain lives... truthful privation to marque the remainder of the state miserable too.'

'Look astatine Kamala Harris,' helium continued. 'The full aboriginal of the Democrats is controlled by radical without children.'

He surely caught the zeitgeist. Cat ladies person spawned an detonation of memes connected societal media and it's nary coincidence that New York's biggest Halloween parade has 'Meow!' arsenic this year's theme.

'We can't support brainsick feline woman costumes connected the shelves,' said a idiosyncratic astatine Spirit Halloween successful Los Angeles, which has pop-up stores crossed the country.

'It's by acold our biggest seller and it's the aforesaid successful our stores everywhere. Nothing adjacent comes close, not adjacent Taylor Swift.'

Cat woman costumes and t-shirts are tipped to beryllium the fig 1 bestseller for online retail giants similar Amazon and Etsy, too.

Not that everyone volition spot the comic broadside betwixt present and the predetermination connected November 5.

In information for Donald Trump and JD Vance, his Yale-educated moving mate, the childless feline ladies – and the pistillate fury they provoked – could beryllium dangerously spooky.

That's surely what Kamala Harris is hoping arsenic she desperately courts older pistillate voters successful the last days of a run present cervix and cervix successful the nationalist polls.

For portion Harris's overwhelming enactment amongst young women and women of colour has hardly wavered since she replaced Joe Biden connected the Democrat summons successful the summer, determination is 1 conception of voters who look to beryllium inactive successful play: Republican women implicit 50 could beryllium captious adjacent astatine this precocious stage.

As 1 large Democratic donor told me: 'Every azygous ballot counts and we person recovered determination is simply a swath of Republican women, implicit 50, geographically each implicit the state and from each walks of life, who mightiness alteration their minds.

'These are life-long Republicans who held their noses past clip and voted Trump. But this clip astir we are proceeding from our grassroots canvassers that these women are unfastened to change. They don't similar Trump's vulgarity and lies.'

They don't similar his stance connected abortion, either.

By encouraging the Supreme Court to abolish Roe v Wade – the national warrant of termination rights – Trump had already galvanized a almighty conception of the pistillate ballot against him.

'Abortion is simply a large issue,' confirmed the Democrat donor. 'And, portion galore Republican women are pro-life, they besides accidental they judge women should person autonomy implicit their ain bodies.

'The thought of telling women what they tin and can't bash with their ain bodies repulses them. The childless feline woman remark enraged each women but peculiarly Republican women of a definite property due to the fact that it was specified a dumb and insulting happening to say. And that circumstantial demographic could good marque a quality successful a contention this tight.'

So important are these women that Harris spent Monday this week successful the important battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin launching a nonstop entreaty to Republican women alongside erstwhile Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

During a municipality hallway gathering successful Michigan, lifelong Republican Cheney – whose begetter Dick Cheney served arsenic vice president to George W. Bush – framed the predetermination as, 'a prime betwixt close and wrong.'

Cheney said: 'I person galore Republicans who accidental to me, 'I can't beryllium public'. They bash interest astir a full scope of things, including violence, but they'll bash the close thing. I would archer them (Republican women) you tin ballot your conscience and not ever person to accidental a connection to anybody.'

Canvasser Anne Brown, 54, is successful the important Pennsylvania suburb of Chester County, wherever Harris and Cheney appeared connected Monday night.

She said: 'You spot gait signs wherever Kamala's sanction is spelled retired successful feline motifs. I deliberation with a batch of these women it comes down to basal decency and wanting to support the Constitution. Trump is an existential menace to ideology and that's wherefore I judge you volition spot Republican men and women voting for Kamala, but peculiarly women. Chester County voted Republican for 150 years. But erstwhile I americium speaking to my Republican friends, they are telling maine they are voting for Kamala.'

In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, Kamala is winning arsenic galore arsenic 4 per cent of voters registered arsenic Republican.

Melanie Barton-Gauss, a retired teacher from Florida, is simply a subordinate of 'Republican Voters Against Trump'.

'I grew up pro-life, but I americium precise steadfast successful my stance that my views connected termination are my idiosyncratic views,' she said. 'Nobody has immoderate close to enforce our idiosyncratic spiritual views connected idiosyncratic else. Our nation's founders ne'er intended for this state to beryllium a theocracy.'

Referring to Vance's 'childless feline ladies' remark she added: 'What does helium think? That women are expected to beryllium barefoot and pregnant? That our full lives are thing but arsenic kid bearers and carers? I did not spell to assemblage to beryllium relegated solely to that role.'

Trump, meanwhile, tin look to his ain surge successful antheral voters successful what has go 1 of the astir markedly gendered elections of each time.

Harris has immense pb of astir 13 percent poinst among women according to a canvass by the Wall Street Journal, yet the aforesaid probe shows that Trump has a important ten-point pb among men.

In fact, Trump is thought to beryllium eating into the Democrat's traditional support from achromatic and Latino males, which could itself extremity the predetermination successful his favor.

Now, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has launched a run titled, 'She's the Difference: Women voters 50+'.

AARP Vice President Nancy LeaMond said: 'We got precise funny successful older women voters erstwhile cipher other was focusing connected them.

'There are 63 cardinal women voters implicit the property of 50 and 97 percent of them accidental they are going to vote.'

The AARP says its ain polling has shown a wide displacement among 50-plus women successful the past 2 weeks - and they're moving towards the Democrats.

'We cognize that women implicit 50 are precise plugged successful said AARP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson.

'They are focused connected the news, they are educated, they are motivated, they are acceptable to participate.'

A lifelong Republican person from Texas who didn't privation to beryllium named – similar galore I've spoken to  because, she explained, 'I would beryllium ostracized by my church, my assemblage and my family' – is 1 of of those abandoning Trump.

'I voted for Trump successful 2016 and 2020,' she said, 'but this clip I volition secretly ballot for Kamala and ne'er archer my husband.'

My person had already been appalled by Trump's infamous 2016 comments caught connected a 'hot mic' by Access Hollywood that helium was truthful celebrated helium could 'grab' women 'by the p*ssy'.

Now, pursuing the termination authorities and JD Vance's comments, she's yet had enough.

'It would beryllium a small ironic,' she suggested, 'if the antheral who said that ends up getting defeated by a clump of Republican feline ladies'