What exit polls tell us about the 2024 gender gap

Overall the gender gap wasn't record breaking, but there is a lot under the surface that shouldn't be ignored

Early last week I wrote an article for 538 with ABCNews about the gender gap in support for Trump. You can read that here, but I thought I’d use the blog to elaborate on the role of gender in the presidential election, and why it matters.

First, a quick comment about exit polls, which our 538 story relies on. Historically, exit polls are surveys conducted immediately after voters cast their ballots at polling stations. The primary purpose of these polls is to gather information about how people voted, as well as their demographics, motivations, and opinions on key issues. Today, because a lot more people vote early or by mail, firms that carry out exit polls have had to update their methodology by adding phone surveys of absentee and early voters. But exit polling is challenging, and it’s not a perfect! Since at least 2016 Pew has been carrying out a “validated” analysis the vote choice for national races, which I think is more reliable. “Validated voters” are respondents who told Pew in a post-election survey that they voted in the respective election and they have a record for voting in a commercial voter file. Pew usually releases that in January, so we will have to wait to see what that says (here is the 2020 analysis).

Alright, to the gender gap story.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the “gender gap” as originally coined, is the difference in men’s and women’s vote choice for the same party. The chart below shows the gender gap since 1980 in support for the Republican presidential candidate:

A quick glance tells you two important things: First, men are more likely than women to vote for Republicans in every race since 1980 except for 1992 (when apparently nobody voted for the Republican). Second, the gap is getting bigger over time.

In 2024, according to the exits, the overall gender gap was 10 points — men were 10 points more likely to vote for Trump, compared with women.

But at some intersections the gender gap is bigger (see chart below). For example:

• Although overwhelmingly backing Harris, Black men are 14 points more likely to support Trump than Black women.

• Latinos have a 17-point gender gap.

• Although a majority voted Harris, nonwhite college voters have a 16-point gender gap

• Nonwhite non-college voters have a 14-point gender gap (still not a majority for Trump though)

• Not a gender gap, but the gap between white men with and without a college degree is LARGE. If you want to read about how college has polarized especially white voters, I recommend the book, Polarized by Degrees. I am doing a careful read of it now.

• Younger cohorts (18-29; 30-39) have 12-point gender gaps, so the much anticipated Gen Z gender divide emerged, but was more modest than many expected.

So, why do I think attention to the gender gap is important, even though the gap (10 points) wasn’t record breaking?

Even if the gender gap wasn’t enormous there was an undeniable influence of gender in the campaign, and we detail examples in the story. As we also mention in the story, post-election, young men and women in particular are doubling down, with young men using “your body, my choice,” as a victory cry, and young women threatening to swear off men altogether. Worth noting that “your body, my choice” has seen a surge in use online since November 6.

Young men and women interpreting the outcome of the race in these very personalized ways is signal enough that understanding the role of gender is crucial for unraveling the deeper currents shaping voter behavior—currents that could drive even more significant shifts in the future.

I’m somewhat hesitant to admit it, but I do think the diagnosis that on the surface the race amounted to “boys (Republicans) versus girls (Democrats)” is somewhat illuminating. Political science research has found evidence that Democrats are implicitly the more feminine party and Republicans the more masculine party, and this isn’t a very new development. But what is new is that our current public discourse has elevated gender roles, gender norms, and gender equality such that these implicit images of the parties are more explicit, and voters can sort themselves more deliberately using this heuristic. And in politics, where femininity is still seen as inferior, Democrats are going to be on the losing end, at the presidential level.

My first book, Masculinity, Media and the American Presidency (published in 2015) was about how media reinforce the idea of feminine Democrats and masculine Republicans by how they talk about presidential candidates. The analysis is of print media coverage of presidential races from 1992 to 2012, so only male presidential candidates. I summarized my findings here for the MonkeyCage with Washington Post. Overall, the media coverage reinforced these gendered views of the party, but also reinforced the inferiority of femininity in American politics, because feminine descriptions of the candidates were usually negative. [You may be asking yourself how Democrats ever win presidential contests if they are the “feminine” party. It’s not always the case that femininity loses. Also, Democratic presidential candidates tend to gain the “leadership” edge by being seen as the more competent party. So when they shift the playing field to one where competence is valued, (and not strength or masculinity), they have the upper hand. E.g. I’d argue that in 2012, Romney went up against Obama on his terrain instead of shifting the terrain to one that gives Republicans an advantage].

In my book, I argue that there needs to be a cultural shift in how we view and value femininity. Only after this shift will people of any gender be able to fully participate in democratic life. But in the short term, Democrats could probably just scramble it, so the heuristic isn’t as accessible. Alright, that’s a bit of a cliffhanger, but I’m going to leave it there!

As always, thanks for reading. Subscribe if you want me in your inbox about once a month!:

What else I’m reading, and you should to!:

1. New York Times, Tressie McMillan Cottom. “How an empty internet gave us Tradwifes and Trump.” (gift link)

McMillan Cottom understands (and can explain) the role of culture on our politics better than anyone, and this long read as well worth your time. She talks about some of the themes that we covered in my 538 story but in much more depth and with much more context. TradWives, podcast bros, even the Real Housewives series have been instrumental in fortifying these regressive ideas about gender roles that the Trump campaign tapped into.

The Trump coalition found people where they toil online. He built them a political home, one rambling speech at a time. Now, conservatives have a cultural advantage.

2. The Nation. Pete Davis. “The US is a civic desert. To survive, the Democratic Party needs to transform itself.”
   ”Social capital” is connection among individuals. Robert Putnam famously argues that societies with high levels of social capital enjoy norms of reciprocity (shared expectations that help and goodwill will be mutually exchanged) and communal (or neighborly) trust. In the first chapter of Bowling Alone, Putnam argues that “trustworthiness lubricates social life” (pg 21). So, in this story at The Nation, Davis convincingly argues that the progressive left and Democrats lack community spaces and engagement where they can cultivate social capital necessary to win elections.

   In the short run, we need to do better at speaking to life in the desert. But in the long run, what can distinguish Democrats is that we could actually lay out a vision for a civic reforestation project—a vision for how civic life could be repopulated, for how social and institutional trust (and trustworthiness) could be rebuilt, and for how our nation’s cities, workplaces, and institutions could be better organized to invite more Americans to co-create them (and, in turn, be better served by them).

3. The Nation. Waleed Shahid. “The Left didn’t sink Kamala Harris. Here is what did.”

   In this piece, Shahid essentially argues that Democrat’s tendency to water down their message to try to appeal to everybody makes it appeal to nobody. If Democrats want to win presidential elections, they need to go with their full fat arguments and agendas, especially that prioritize people.

   Biden and Harris’s reluctance to embrace what some Democratic elites might view as “tasteless” or “uncouth” populist appeals allowed their opponents to seize the public’s attention, creating a void that ultimately drained the administration of the energy and momentum it once had. Trump’s simple, emotionally charged narrative about fixing the economy, winding down foreign wars, restoring order, and protecting “traditional” American values may have been filled with bigotry and lies. But it commanded the public discourse, pushing the Biden-Harris administration off center stage.

4. Washington Post. Will Oremus. “Musk admits X throttles links as ‘news influencers’ take over.

   I have an inhumane number of opinions about the rise of “news influencers” and their impact on democratic life. I’ll articulate why I think its mostly bad for democracy another day, but I am not at all surprised that someone like Musk, who seems wont to break democratic institutions, is using his website to speed up the process by making it more difficult to post links in tweets that would take users off the platform. I used to use Twitter HOURS a day (no shame in admitting it), so I can testify that the new Twitter works like shit (and looks like shit, too). We’ll see if this latest change diminishes the social network’s influence or not.

   Since buying the platform, Musk has touted it as a hub for “citizen journalists” who post directly on X rather than linking to their work elsewhere. He has also trumpeted his disdain for traditional media and even used X’s algorithm to throttle links to specific news outlets or rival online forums.