There was a wide gender gap in this US election, just as there was in 2016 and 2020. Kamala Harris enjoyed a 10-percentage point lead over Donald Trump among women voters, according to the exit polls. For the second time, the Democratic ticket was headed by a woman presidential candidate who was passionate about abortion rights and made it the centrepiece of her campaign. And both these women, Hillary Clinton and Harris, faced the most misogynistic Republican presidential nominee in history.
In the final week of a bitter election, a day didn’t go by when Donald Trump did not insult women. By spelling out the letters, he called former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a bitch, as well as “evil, sick, crazy”. He laughed during a Madison Square Garden rally when another speaker said Harris was controlled by “pimp handlers”. Elon Musk, who poured millions into Trump’s coffers, ran an advert created by his political action committee (PAC) that opened: “Kamala Harris is a C Word”. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate who had already stirred the ire of women he called “a bunch of childless cat ladies”, predicted victory with these bons mots: “We’re going to take out the trash and the trash’s name is Kamala Harris.”
But none of this mattered, even these shockingly vulgar, disrespectful words. In fact, Joe Biden did better with women voters in 2020, winning by 15 points over Trump, than Kamala Harris did on Tuesday night (+10). Harris also drew less support from women than Clinton, who was 13 points up on Trump in 2016.
It turned out that women, like the rest of the country, cared most about their economic pain. With a low of only 28 per cent of the country saying in September that the United States was on the right track, the incumbent party probably always stood a very slim chance of winning, despite myriad polls showing a very tight race. As democratic political consultant James Carville famously said in 1992, “It’s the economy, Stupid.”
Emily Stack, 30, who leads the North Carolina Federation of Young Republicans, and was organising a swing state that Trump carried, saw this clearly weeks ago. She told PBS, “Right now I think they (women) are coming out of college and they’re wondering, ‘hey, where am I going to find a job?’”
Ballot measures protecting abortion rights were approved in seven states and failed in three. But the issue was not key to the outcome of the presidential contest.
What was crushingly different for Harris was the defection of so many male voters who had previously supported the Democrats, especially Latino men, who preferred Trump by an astonishing 10-point margin. His advantage with white men was 20 points, which was actually less than the lead he had with this group in 2016 and 2020. Harris had wide leads with black women and men.
Younger, non-college educated men were the core of the Maga base and Trump played to them throughout the campaign. Trevor Darr, an 18-year-old Trump supporter, told PBS the Democrat elite looks down on young men. He emphasised that Trump skilfully used cultural touchstones to connect with younger men, such as by going on a podcast featuring the livestreamer Adin Ross.
“I think the Democratic Party, as of late, has put in place a lot of societal vilification on the shoulders of young men and saying that we’re the source of a lot of social ills in America. And Donald Trump has repudiated that message in a lot of ways.”
There is a profound difference between how younger men and younger women view American politics. According to exit polls from ABC News, “There is also a huge gender gap between young men (who are roughly split between Harris and Trump 49 per cent-47 per cent) and young women who back Harris by 26 points.”
Younger women now make up the majority of students at many American colleges and professional schools. Many are outearning their male partners. Some political analysts suggest that a backlash has developed against successful younger women, the “childless cat ladies” Vance so savagely satirised.
The gender divide is now visible in many areas of American life. Richard Reeves of the American Institute for Boys and Men explains it this way, “Young men today don’t see an obvious scripted place for themselves in society and in the community and in the family the way their fathers did.”
Trump, a convicted felon and sex offender, claims to be their champion.
He also wants to be the “protector of women”, but like some of his male supporters, what he really wants is to turn the clock back on them. Now he has four years to do it.
