Are we headed for the biggest gender gap in Presidential campaign history?

Yes women are mad, but men seem to be saying something too.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

The Democrats have nominated the first Black woman in history to be their standard bearer. Following a historic rush of joyous support the race has essentially solidified into a standard and predictable partisan range, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz experienced a negligible, if any, convention bounce. Again this was the same for Trump and we can now comfortably state that we are in a period of time when party convention bounces serve as little more than a wake up to partisans to come home to their partisan foxholes. But while partisans have returned to their red and blue corners, men and women have gone their separate ways too.

Women are angry and motivated. Men are digging in.

According to Langer Research who just conducted a poll with ABC/Ipsos “While the overall numbers are essentially unchanged from before the convention, the gender gap has widened. Harris leads by 13 points among women, 54-41 percent, while it’s Trump +5 points among men, 51-46 percent, for an 18-point gap. (The Trump-Harris difference among men is not statistically significant.) Pre-convention, Harris had been a slight +6 points among women and a non-significant +3 among men, a 3-point gap. The gender gap now is more in line with recent elections, an average of 19 points in exit polls since 1996. Much of the moves among women and men have occurred among white people. White women have gone from +13 points for Trump pre-convention to a virtual dead heat (Trump +2) now; white men, from +13 points for Trump before the convention to +21 points now.” Read the full report here.

As mentioned in the Langer report, we’re currently in the range of a “normal” gender gap but there's still sixty days to go and were in an unprecedented time of women registering, turning out to vote and breaking towards the Democratic party. As the Langer poll shows, men are breaking equally as quickly towards Republicans.

The political gender gap has been one of those phenomena that has perplexed political observers for decades. It's been debated, discussed and analyzed. It’s been a common feature of politics and tactics employed by both parties for my entire professional career. During that time many have suggested that the gap is overblown or misunderstood. Many others have pointed out that the gap is largely a function of younger single women with passionately partisan preferences often focused primarily on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy and that the gap narrows as women enter their thirties, have families and prioritize other issues. For many years Republicans pointed out that they often matched Democrats or exceeded them with married women, it's just that they lost single women so badly that the gap appeared. 

But one thing is clear: No one is suggesting that women aren't more motivated to vote in recent years than they ever have been before. From million woman marches in response to Trump beating the expected first woman President Hillary Clinton to reaction to Trump’s “Grab ‘em by the pussy” comment, female voters have been…well, pissed off.

The end of Roe v Wade added jet fuel to the fire. While the trend of women away from the GOP became a noticeable and measurable trickle after 2016…it became a verifiable wave of anger after the Dobbs decision.

Tom Bonier, a principal at the Democratic strategy firm TargetSmart, was among the first to identify and quantify just how visceral the backlash to the Dobbs decision was. By tracking voter registration trends in key states heading into the midterms, Bonier noticed (It wasn't hard because the gaps were enormous) that women, particularly young women of color, were registering to vote at explosive rates. In hindsight it was obvious, but to his credit he was the first national political consultant to identify the trend and boldly pronounce that it would be determinative in the outcome of the midterms and - to his credit -  it was. Women limited the damage typically done to the party in power and where jubilant Republicans were expecting to win a majority of 20 plus seats, when the dust actually settled Congressman Kevin McCarthy held a very narrow single digit majority and became Speaker on one of the slimmest majorities in history.

Recently, Tom has been reporting that his firm has been finding even bigger spikes in female registration than they found post Dobbs. Are we seeing something even bigger building?

But whatever it is that may be happening is happening with more than white male and female voters. Latinos have often exhibited the largest gender gap of any race or ethnicity ion the country. Check out this Miami Herald story. “Exit polling in the 2020 presidential election found that 36% of Hispanic men voted for Trump compared to 30% of Hispanic women. Recent polls suggest that gap is poised to grow even wider this year; one survey from Univision and YouGov released earlier this month found Trump’s support among Hispanic men at 44%, while another poll from the Pew Research Center released last month showed 38% of those voters backing Trump.”

Men appear to be retrenching into their own foxhole at as great or greater a rate than women.

The gender gap is becoming a gender canyon.