Written by Noah Carl.
A notable feature of recent presidential elections is the sizeable gender gap in voting. Women were 13 points more likely to vote for Clinton than men were. They were 12 points more likely to vote for Biden. And they were 11 points more likely to vote for Harris. Interestingly, the gender gap in support for Democrats is even larger among non-white voters. This year, it was only 8 points among whites, but was 14 points among blacks and 17 points among Hispanics. Why are men so much less likely to support Democrats?
Although it appears to have widened since 2012, the gender gap in voting is nothing new. What many people don’t realise, however, is that it didn’t always exist. In fact, women used to be less likely to support Democrats than men. According to Gallup data, this was true in the 1976, 1956 and 1952 elections. (Other elections in that time period recorded little or no gender gap.) Hence the gender gap with which we’re all familiar has only really existed since 1980.1
Various explanations for this divergence have been put forward, but to me the answer seems quite simple: Democrats came to be seen as the “feminine party” and Republicans came to be seen as the “masculine party”.
