BALLWIN, Mo. _ At a McAlister's Deli, tucked in one of the miles of strip malls that line Manchester Road among the shoulder-to-shoulder suburbs of west St. Louis County, Helen McCauley and her daughter Sara didn't hesitate when asked recently about the coming political season.
"I don't always vote the midterm elections, but this time I definitely will," said Helen, whose politics lean left, with a focus on women's issues.
"I don't like the way the last elections turned out," she said, as Sara, 18 and eager to vote for the first time, nodded. "A lot of women who don't necessarily vote every election are more energized to vote this time."
In a nearby Lion's Choice restaurant, sisters Jodie Green and Julie Siebert, eating with their klatch of giggling young children, expressed somewhat different views. They're frustrated with what they see as the heavy hand of political correctness in the schools and a lack of work ethic in society.
But most of their concerns are less ideological, more practical and based on issues in their own lives: education, suicide prevention, food safety.
"The stuff that's really important isn't really being addressed," said Green, who didn't express the enthusiasm for November that the McCauleys did. When pressed, she blames both parties. "Instead of trying to bring people together, they're separating people further."
Suburbs like Ballwin will be on the front lines of this year's battle for control of Congress, political analysts and candidates themselves say _ with married suburban women in particular determining the outcome.
They are always a complicated bloc, driven less by partisan anger than practical concerns, and less likely than their urban or rural or male counterparts to predictably line up in one political camp or another.
Adding to that unpredictability this year is a president who won't be on the ballot, but whose problems with some women could energize those already inclined to oppose his party's candidates, while tamping down the enthusiasm of those who might otherwise be gettable Republican votes.
Since the early days of his presidential campaign, when he directed harsh rhetoric against prominent women, from actor Rosie O'Donnell to journalist Megyn Kelly, Donald Trump's relationship with female voters has been an issue for him.
Much of the "resistance" movement against his presidency, beginning with a march the day after his inauguration, is coming from women. Democratic women in particular are running and winning elections at levels heretofore unseen.
The question is, will the Trump Factor influence women in November's midterm election?
"There is a group of voters with which (Trump) is really struggling that is going to be consequential in the 2018 midterms, and that is married women," said Jim Kessler, co-founder of the centrist think tank Third Way.
"They have traditionally been supporting Republicans _ not by huge margins, but by margins. And this is a group that is becoming repelled by Donald Trump. There are definitely cultural aspects to it, behavioral aspects."
He said that "whether or not they are offended by the behavior, just sort of the daily drama" may be turning away former female Trump supporters.
"This is a group of voters that could either stay home or vote Democratic" in the congressional elections this fall, Kessler said.
