American philanthropist Melinda French Gates has given Democratic incumbent Joe Biden her first-ever US presidential endorsement, saying, “Women deserve a leader who cares about the issues they face.” She cited Biden’s support for reproductive rights among other issues.
Gates this year left the charitable foundation she co-founded with her former husband, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, with $12.5 billion for her own charity work. She said the contrast between Biden and former President Donald Trump, his Republican rival in the Nov. 5 election, “couldn’t be greater, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.”
I’ve never endorsed a presidential candidate before. But this year’s election stands to be so enormously consequential for women and families that, this time, I can’t stay quiet.Women deserve a leader who cares about the issues they face and is committed to protecting their…
— Melinda French Gates (@melindagates) June 20, 2024
“Women deserve a leader who cares about the issues they face and is committed to protecting their safety, their health, their economic power, their reproductive rights, and their ability to freely and fully participate in a functioning democracy,” she wrote on social media platform X on Thursday.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated about $1.8 million in the 2020 election, most of it to Democrats. In a CNN opinion piece on Thursday, Gates elaborated further, saying Trump’s first term in office endangered the health of women, their safety and freedom. “And he deliberately appointed Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in a decision with far-reaching and catastrophic consequences for women and families,” her CNN piece added.
The court in 2022 overturned the 50-year-old ruling guaranteeing the right to an abortion and ushered in a string of restrictive state measures. Three justices appointed by Trump were in the 5-4 majority. “While Trump has boasted about rolling back the rights of women, Biden understands that the future of our country depends on them. That’s why Biden has earned my vote. I urge anyone who cares about women and families to join me,” she wrote.
November’s election will be much tougher, with the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll putting Biden’s national support at 39% and Trump at 41%. Trump leads Biden in many battleground states, according to several pollsters. Biden, already the oldest U.S. president ever at 81, must convince voters that he is more fit for office than Trump, who is just three years his junior, while combating low approval ratings that are worse among younger voters.
(With agency inputs)
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