Republican women hold key for both parties' 2020 election aspirations

Diane Smith was a lifelong Republican, comfortably toeing the party line through Ronald Reagan, both Bush presidencies and supporting John McCain and Mitt Romney when they sought the nation’s top job.

But the Novi woman had an abrupt change of heart when she heard Donald Trump criticize the looks of fellow Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina during the 2016 election cycle.

"Look at that face," Trump told Rolling Stone magazine of Fiorina. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!"

Smith and her husband sat up in bed when news of the insult exploded on cable news and they pledged to change their political stripes. She is now a Democratic precinct delegate, a board member of the Novi Democratic Club and has donated at least $20,000 to Dem candidates.

“I never thought this would happen to me, but I feel like I’m woke,” she said. “We're going to look back on this time period and I don't think he’ll win again. People have got to get tired of all the chaos.”