These are the top priorities for Republican/Democratic women

ARLINGTON, Va. (7News) — 7News monitors how the parties deal with the issues that are important to women.

Sarah Flourance is co-chair of the Arlington Democrats Women’s Caucus. Republican Darcie Johnston is president of the Arlington County Women’s Club.

The women in both parties want economic stability.

“Our economy is very strong, but that doesn’t mean it’s affordable,” Flourance said. “We need things like labor protection and decent wages so that people can actually earn money and buy into the economy that we do have.”

We need to find ways to make housing here more affordable, we need to make sure people can live on just one income instead of two, if that’s what it takes,” Flourance said.

“They want grocery prices to go back to where they were, and especially gasoline prices to be below $3 a gallon,” Johnston said. “Car insurance, yes, that’s a huge increase; everything in the household budget has gone up. Healthcare, but often they pay for health insurance, but they may not be able to afford to use it. And if If they remember can afford to use it, there may be a shortage of primary care physicians or pediatricians, and then the real cost of health care has skyrocketed, so that’s a big problem.”

Women in both parties also want safe schools for their children.

I went to an event with First Lady Youngkin and she was talking about how 50% of third graders in the Commonwealth can’t read. I think that’s an important issue,” Johnston said. ‘School choice is an important issue, safety in schools, girls in sports – very important to protect that.

“They don’t have to worry about getting hurt because someone who isn’t a girl is allowed on the playing field,” Johnston said.

“Education is a big one, and gun safety is a big one,” Flourance said. “For education, it means making sure we have access to good public education. Ensuring that our public schools are equally resourced so that families, regardless of economic background, have access to what they need to succeed, will close an education gap and resource shortage that plagues many families.”

The women also want to reduce the high childcare costs in the RDW.

“Families spend about 16% of their income, and that’s only if they have one child,” says Flourance. “It’s about $30,000 a year.”

“The economy has driven up those costs, all the costs associated with that, so the ultimate goal is to get back to an economy that is functioning well, the cost of living is going down and wages are going up,” Johnston said. “I mean, we know that under President Trump, wages have increased for all demographics, and we need to get back to that because that will help.”

Abortion is another topic dominating the national discourse.

“There are women who are devastated because they’ve had an abortion and it’s been a moral, psychological problem for them,” Johnston said. “It can be a long part of their lives. But the other thing is we need babies, we need the birth rate in this country to increase, so adoption is a great alternative. I don’t think we talk about that enough.” I don’t think we’re showing how much support someone can get to go down that adoption route and how wonderful that alternative can be.”

“It’s not about the right to abortion, it’s about the right to control our future, right, it’s about being able to grow our families the way we want to grow our families and take care of our families ” said Flourance. . “It’s about making sure we have access to healthcare and aren’t left with more permanent health problems for life if a pregnancy doesn’t go the way we want it to. There are discussions about restrictions on contraception, national abortion. banned – and women are very active on this issue, and I see that it crosses party political lines. Republican women have always had abortions too.

We also asked both women how the immigration issue affects women voters and where the parties differ in their positions.

“Certainly in terms of safety, especially when there are jobs that go to illegal immigrants because they will work for lower wages,” Johnston said. “Housing, driving up housing costs, so increasing housing costs for families. Those are all ways that it’s hard for women.”

“To a large extent, Democrats see immigrants as people, as contributors to the economy, as taxpayers, as people who just want to live here in the United States and grow their families,” Flourance said. “It has often become a very polarizing issue because there is so much misinformation about it.”

Within her party, Flourance also hears concerns from women about gun safety and domestic violence.

“Many women know that Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz, both gun owners themselves, are there to pass common sense gun restrictions, background checks, and close loopholes to keep guns out of the hands of unsafe individuals. so we can all be safer, both in our homes and beyond,” said Flourance.

Johnston hears fears from seniors who face AI and rapidly evolving technology in their daily lives – along with the availability of healthcare as the population ages.

“Access to health care is very important to them,” Johnston said. “They want to make sure that Medicare and Social Security are going to be there for them, and I think that’s absolutely protected under President Trump,” Johnston said.

There is a wonderful, beautiful community here of women of all ages, of all generations who want to see change in this country, to make sure that we have coordination, to make sure that we have stability as a country, and that we lean away of chaos,” said Flourance.