For the first time, both major parties’ presidential candidates have families that have been knit together by divorce. It’s a sign that politics is finally catching up with America.
The historic nature of the two first-families-in-waiting comes after a half-century of dramatic shifts in American family life. And though there has been a long running tug-of-war between Republicans and Democrats over which party is the most “pro-family,” that political fight is more heated than ever.
Many conservatives have embraced former President Donald Trump despite his personal life and family structure, rather than because of it; important figures on the right, including Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, are pushing for a return to the traditional family structure as a salve for social ills, like declining birth rates, student achievement and crime. Democrats, meanwhile, are articulating a vision of families that includes same-sex couples, blended families, adoptive families and single parents or grandparents — one they argue is reflected in Vice President Kamala Harris’ family.
“It tells the honest story of America and that we’re doing the work of building a more just America where everyone can sit at this table, however you show up, in whatever kind of family model,” said Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who is among the two dozen members of Congress who are stepparents. “Whether you’re talking about two mommies, two daddies, bonus moms — this is reflective of today’s American modern family.”
Harris, herself a child of divorce, has a blended family that includes her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, and her stepchildren, Cole and Ella. Trump, who has been divorced twice, has five children, half-siblings with each other from three moms.
It’s a notable sea change since Nelson Rockefeller’s divorce and subsequent remarriage helped sink his 1964 presidential bid. More than a third of children don’t live with two married parents, and nearly one in six kids live in a blended family household with stepparents, stepsiblings or half siblings, according to the Pew Research Center. And 78 percent of people now think single-parent households are acceptable, while 58 percent support married gay or lesbian couples raising children together, according to Pew.
Until Trump, Ronald Reagan was the only president who had ever been divorced. And, as recently as 2008, John McCain’s first “broken marriage” to Carol McCain, his first wife, was the source of media speculation and titillation. President Joe Biden also has a blended family, though because of the death of his first wife Neilia, not from divorce. (First Lady Jill Biden is stepmom to the late Beau Biden and his brother Hunter, and Ashley Biden is their half-sister.)
“We’re a long way from the nuclear family,” said Rick Davis, McCain’s presidential campaign manager, calling Harris’ family the “classic new nuclear family.”
“That looks more like America these days than a traditional nuclear family that’s been married for 25 years and has two kids,” he added. “I don’t think that’s the America we live in anymore.”
For many communities of color, blended and extended families have long been a part of family life, said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter.
“The whole ‘Leave It to Beaver’ family structure has never been the family structure for many communities,” Brown said. The blended family structure “has always been the backbone of so many communities, that their greatest economic security and infrastructure was the way that we actually saw family.”
Affairs, which were once kryptonite to a presidential bid, also don’t appear to have the same impact they used to. Kerstin Emhoff, Doug’s ex-wife, quashed an early attack on an affair he had during their marriage, calling him “a great father” and “a great friend,” and is a vocal Harris booster. And Democrats have attacked Trump for his felony convictions related to hush money payments — rather than the alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. (Trump denies the affair took place.)
Strategists on both sides of the aisle attribute the lack of stickiness of attacks on candidates’ marriages to changing standards about what’s fair game in a presidential campaign as cultural attitudes shift.
“Donald Trump is on his third marriage. Certainly on my side of the aisle, I don’t see anything wrong with that — because that’s life,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Still, as much as social norms have changed, Trump’s decision to pick Vance as his running mate has elevated the discussion about traditional families, which the New Right sees as the solution to many modern problems — with a populist twist. They argue that small-government programs have failed to beget traditional families and instead favor more government intervention, like the child tax credits and paid family leave Trump pushed as president.
“The marriage rate has come down to record lows, and fertility rates hit record lows last year,” said Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. “Whatever was the kind of standard Republican agenda — limited government, low taxes — that hasn’t really done much to revise the fortunes of the American family.”
Vance’s proposal to raise the child tax credit to $5,000 per child is an example of the kinds of pro-government intervention policies once more traditionally aligned with Democrats now being advocated for as part of a new conservative pro-family agenda. But Vance, who was raised by his grandparents and has a collection of half and stepsiblings, has said this policy would apply to all families — whether kids are being raised by same-sex couples, grandparents or heterosexual couples — suggesting a desire to help more than just traditional families.
“Senator Vance supports policies that will make life better for all kinds of American families: lower prices, a stronger economy, safer streets, and a closed border to stop the deadly flow of fentanyl,” said Luke Schroeder, a Vance spokesperson. “All kids in America, whether they’re raised in a ‘traditional’ family or a ‘nontraditional’ family as JD was, deserve to achieve their American dream.”
Trump, meanwhile, has pledged free in vitro fertilization treatments to all Americans, paid for either by insurance companies or the federal government. His campaign has defended the proposal — which is angering social conservatives and deficit hawks alike — as a necessary long-term investment in light of the country’s record-low birth rate.
The former president also suggested last week that the federal costs of making child care more affordable in the U.S. would be “small” compared to the money that would be generated through his proposed tariffs on imported goods to the U.S.
At the same time, Democrats see their bevy of social safety net programs as a means of pushing a “pro-family” platform. Harris has pitched restoring the expanded child tax credit, as well as adding an additional $6,000 tax credit for children in their first year of life, a variation on the proposal Vance has put forward — all regardless of family structure. Democrats have also couched proposals to offer paid parental leave and expand health care access as similarly “pro-family.”
It’s part of their effort to counter that there is more than one way to build a happy family in the 21st century. That sentiment was underscored by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s comments last month at the Democratic National Convention, highlighting his relationship with his husband, Chasten, and their two kids.
“The makeup of our kitchen table, the existence of my family, is just one example of something that was literally impossible as recently as 25 years ago,” he said. “This kind of life went from impossible to possible, from possible to real, from real to almost ordinary in less than half a lifetime.”
