A 39 percentage point difference. This was the eye-widening statistic that The New York Times reported in its August 2024 poll, finding that 18 to 29-year-old women preferred President Joe Biden by 28 points, whereas young men of this age supported President Donald Trump by 11 points. Following the 2024 United States presidential election, media commentary has focused on the widening voting gap between men and women, a narrative that is largely driven by young people’s diverging preferences.
However, the gender voting gap is not a new phenomenon in American politics. While a 2024 Edison exit poll found that American men voted for President Trump by ten points more than women, comparable numbers date back to the 1980 and 1996 elections, where Democrats won nine and 11 more points, respectively, among women than men.
The story of this American voting gap begins with the Civil Rights Movement, when some white men stopped identifying as Democrats and new voting blocs joined the party. Anna Greenberg, a Senior Partner at GQR—a Washington, D.C.-based polling firm that works with political candidates of the Democratic Party—spoke to this.
“Men started leaving the Democratic Party in the late fifties in response to the Democratic Party becoming more progressive on civil rights,” Greenberg said. “So it’s not that the Democratic Party attracted a lot more women—it’s that men stopped identifying [with the party], especially white men in the South. Over the course of the sixties and seventies, more and more men left the Democratic Party in terms of their voting behavior.”
As the Democratic Party became the party of civil rights, epitomized by legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson acknowledged that his party would lose the white Southern voting bloc. Simultaneously, this legislation dramatically changed the Democrats’ party makeup, as Professor Kelly Dittmar, Director of Research at the Center for American Women in Politics and Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, identified.
“The gender gap in voting is fueled by women of color,” Dittmar explained. “You have further enfranchisement of Native women, an increase in the population of Asian and Latina women, who, by the way, don’t vote as overwhelmingly Democratic [compared to Black women], but it still plays a role in this. We’re not talking about the same voters in the 1950s as we’re talking about in the 1980s. It’s not necessarily that the same women changed.”
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, expanded immigration to people outside Northern and Western Europe. For the first time, people from Asian and African countries had pathways to citizenship. Then, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished quotas and began accepting immigrants based on their careers and family history. Such laws reshaped the American electorate, where women of color would become instrumental in driving the gender voting gap.
In 1975, Congress added Section 203 to the Voting Rights Act, acknowledging that some voters needed non-English election information. Some polling places began providing ballots in other languages and employing bilingual judges. In addition, voting jurisdictions were required to provide election information to language groups who were historically disenfranchised, including Spanish, Asian, Native American, and Alaskan Native. This led to increased voting rates for Latinos beginning in the 1970s.
However, American women did not become political equals with men overnight. Social norms maintained that politics was a man’s realm, especially in ordinary suburban communities throughout the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
Deb McKee, a lifelong resident of Guiderland in Albany County, New York, voted for president for the first time in the 1976 election between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Reflecting on her high school years, McKee recalled learning about politics through conversations with friends and being aware of female politicians such as Representative Shirley Chisholm, Representative Bella Abzug, and Senator Margaret Chase Smith. But in communities like Guilderland in the 1960s and 1970s, women did not tend to be trailblazers in politics.
“We were still kind of brainwashed into thinking that politics was the man’s field, and that any women who were connected politically were a fluke, almost,” McKee said. “[Women] voted with their husbands. Not that they were commanded to, but I think there was more of a tacit understanding that [they] vote together. Women couldn’t have credit cards in their own name,” she added.
Still, times were changing as the women’s liberation movement took hold on the country. This period saw increased civic participation among women as they began to obtain more education and economic independence, marrying at lower rates. These trends meant that women had greater freedom to vote differently than their male counterparts.
Such trends reached communities such as Guilderland, too. Even among women who were homemakers, political activism was present. McKee described this occurrence in her own community when women protested against the Vietnam War.
“I think the Vietnam War was polarizing, but it also brought many women protesting. There might have even been more women than men in a lot of those protests. It was a war nobody could explain to anybody, and they were drafting young men left and right. That started to make women feel like they had more of a stake in it,” McKee described.
The 1980 presidential election between incumbent President Jimmy Carter and California Governor Ronald Reagan was the first election in which there was a statistically discernible gender gap that persists to the present day. That year, President Carter performed about nine points better with women than with men, reflecting changes brought about by the enfranchisement of women of color and the women’s liberation movement.
In addition, Dittmar commented that men’s and women’s conflicting ideas about the role of government in society likely played a role in 1980. President Reagan’s criticism of New Deal social policies and advocacy for trickle-down economics, in turn, drove away some female voters.
“Reagan’s politics in particular motivated this growing divide between men and women. Part of it was just about the policies, right? You look at Reaganomics. Less government, more individual-level support, instead of funding government. So the Reagan shift in policy is part of it, with women being more supportive of government and more reliant on government than men are,” Dittmar said.
In 1992, incumbent President George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton competed for the presidency. Clinton advocated for paid family and medical leave protections, reflecting the Democratic Party’s growing consideration for women and provoking a realignment of voters.
“There were a lot of gendered appeals in politics before Clinton in 1992, but in 1996, you just see the collapse of men voting Democratic. And it has been consistent ever since. So [the gender gap] has its roots in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, but it culminates with Newt Gingrich and the 1994 election, when the Democrats lost the House and the Senate. Newt Gingrich is kind of pre-MAGA,” Greenberg said.
A new century brought about further changes in the American electorate. The 2008 election became another notable year in American politics, with the election of America’s first Black president, Barack Obama. President Obama successfully mobilized Latino and Black voters.
“[The mobilization] certainly was influenced by his race and the motivation of supporting a Black president, but it wasn’t only because of that, right? You can look at some of the strategies and engagement of that campaign with the black community. Black women were the most important part of the Obama coalition. And so I think when we think about gender gaps or gender differences, that’s an interesting election to look at,” Dittmar explained.
In addition, Black women turned out to vote at a higher rate than any racial or gender group in the 2008 and 2012 elections. Black voters, on average, were strong supporters of Obama, but Black women’s high turnout rates further propelled the voting gap. This is due to a series of factors.
Nadia Brown is a Professor of Government at Georgetown University. She also serves as Director of the university’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program, studying Black women’s leadership as candidates and elected officials.
“One of the things that is unique in Black culture is reminding people of the importance of voting. This is a historical holdover from legacies of disenfranchisement and exclusion. So we see Black people in the United States registered to vote and turning out to vote more than other groups proportionally,” Brown said.
Likewise, Greenberg compared voting to a habit, where those in civically-engaged communities are more likely to vote. Churches are instrumental in boosting civic engagement among Black people, especially Black women.
“If you go to church, you’re more likely to vote than if you don’t go to church because you are in politically relevant social networks. If you are in a union, you are more likely to vote,” Greenberg spelled out. “One of the reasons why Black women are so much more likely to vote is that they are very high church attenders. The Civil Rights Movement and the right to vote came out of the Black church. And the black church is [about] 70% female.”
Brown concurred with this point, discussing the role of civic skills in political engagement.
“There’s been scholarship that shows church attendance is a predictor of political mobilization, but really the underlying factor is the civic skills necessary to participate in politics. The socializing agent helps people to know how to engage in politics. It’s also the communal aspect of how you’re socialized into fitting into a norm, which is tied to your social identity. [Church has] been a place where Black women, who have been closed off to more traditional forms of leadership, are able to get the skills that support leadership,” Brown said.
Anna Sampaio, a Professor of Political Science and Ethnic Studies at Santa Clara University, studies Latino voting and political participation. She also identified 2008 as a “watershed year” in American politics, given the Democrats’ investment in the Latino electorate.
“It’s not just a kind of one-time investment. It’s this dedicated investment over a lengthy period of time, to a ground game in key battleground states,” Sampaio described. “There is an attention to issues that had been off the table. Immigration becomes part of the national dialogue. Frankly, it’s surprising even to me now that you had a national debate on humane and democratic practices of immigration being part of the landscape. Attention to the issues Latinos care about becomes part of this campaign structure in the Obama campaign.”
Without this mobilization of Latino or Black voters, Obama could not have won in 2008 or 2012. Across age groups, especially among young people ages 18 to 29, Latino voting rates increased with Obama’s campaigns. Latina women’s participation is especially salient, as they have voted at higher rates than their male counterparts since at least the 1990s. Latina women are more likely to become citizens, register to vote, and go to the polls than Latino men.
Sampaio also cited the concept of a “modern gender gap,” a term coined by political scientist Susan Carroll. This refers to when both men and women of a certain identity group vote Democrat, but there exists a gap in their degree of support. For as long as researchers have studied Latino voters, women have more often supported Democrats than Latino men.
“I would say that [the gap] has increased as attention to Latino voters has become more concentrated,” Sampaio said. “The 2000s marked Latinos as a significant political body that couldn’t afford to be ignored, and you got that kind of investment and outreach. Then, there is a faster and more concentrated effort to get Latinas. I would say that the voting mobilization ends up landing more significantly on Latinas than it does on the Latino men.”
Women of color play a major role in the national voting gap between men and women, due to their higher turnout rates and their Democratic bent. In conjunction with the fact that Democratic policies more often appeal to women’s political preferences, American men’s increasing support for Republicans intensifies the gender voting gap.
Andrea Aldrich, Senior Lecturer in Political Science and professor of the class, “Women, Politics, and Policy” at Yale University, identified the media’s shortcomings in describing this gendered voting gap.
“A lot of times, the media is quick to say this gender gap is mostly the result of women sticking to their beliefs, standing up for their rights, becoming more powerful [on] their own,” Aldrich said. “But it’s equally a part of men getting more conservative. So that is where the split started, and I think, since maybe 2016, [it] has been getting wider and wider.”
Donald Trump has a unique ability to drive the male-female gender gap in voting due to his appeal to traditional gender roles. Over the past decades, women have made great economic gains, while globalization has displaced many men from well-paying blue-collar jobs.
In addition, as the Democratic Party has increasingly become associated with advocacy of social issues—i.e., minority rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights—and less with labor issues, this has driven members of the white working class to the Republican Party.
In a 2016 poll conducted by The Atlantic and PRRI, about 40 percent of Trump supporters completely or mostly agreed that, “Society seems to punish men just for acting like men.” Conversely, just 22 percent of Clinton supporters said the same.
“[Men’s] way of life is changing in front of them in a way that they don’t like, whereas the way of life for this group of women is changing in a way that they do like,” Aldrich stated. “I think that’s one of the large drivers, and that’s what Trump sort of hits on with these people. It’s like, we need to bring America back to the way that it was, where the blue-collar worker could support a family on his own.”
Dittmar spoke to this point as well, explaining that, “Donald Trump absolutely contributes to [the gap] with his particularly gendered brand of politics. The masculinity politics that he presents are very much an appeal to male grievance. He has leveraged fairly large gaps between men and women in vote choice.”
In addition, in 2018, the midterm year during Donald Trump’s first presidency, college-educated white women and suburban women changed their voting behavior.
“In 2018, you see white, college-educated women and suburban women move significantly Democratic,” Greenberg said. “A lot of those suburban districts that were historically Republican flip and become Democratic. 2018 is the first time in recent memory that there’s really been kind of a shift, and these women haven’t shifted back.”
According to the Edison Exit Poll, men supported Trump by 11 points more than women in 2016. In 2020, women supported Biden by 12 points more than men. Again, in 2024, men supported Trump by 10 points more than women. Still, these margins are no greater than past elections dating back to the 1980s.
Trump’s masculinity politics do not solely appeal to white men. The president has also found success with Black and Latino men, which further exacerbates the gender voting gap. Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump would discuss how illegal immigrants were stealing “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs,” a rhetoric that generally appeals to men more than women.
“What Trump has done in his messaging is use those same grievance politics with men of color, with Black men and Latino men, specifically. Even though historically, I’m talking about this trend to the right for white men,” Dittmar said. “[Trump’s] strategist told The New York Times, they were trying to appeal to men of color. How they [did] that was [to say] these other people are trying to take away you and your rights, your power, and you need to stick with me and we’ll restore that.”
Sampaio also identified the heightened role of grievance politics among men of color in the 2024 election, where the gender gap among Black and Latino people intensified. However, she noted that it is unclear whether Latino men became majority Republican supporters in 2024, as some news headlines suggest.
“Latino men resonated with these targeted appeals to masculinity, and that came in lots of different forms. It came in these appeals to kind of an aggressive toxic masculinity, a rejection of anything seemingly feminist, feminine, or transgender. It came with this emphasis on strength, even violence, and shows of violent force. You saw that in not only responses to Kamala Harris, this kind of targeted interpersonal attack against her, but in descriptions about shows of force against immigrants,” Sampaio stated.
“It also came in these appeals to this bro culture, this kind of masculine intimacy that Trump made repeatedly to young men on everything from podcasts to memes,” she continued. “The data suggests that young men responded to this. Latino men and Black men responded to this and increased their support for the Republican Party, specifically for Donald Trump. What does seem to be in contention, and certainly, I would say is not true, is that Latino men, for the first time, became majority Republican supporters. That data just doesn’t pan out.”
It is important to note that not all groups of women are overwhelmingly Democratic. While college-educated women, women of color, and young women are strong supporters of Democrats, 53 percent—a majority—of white women voted for Donald Trump in 2024, according to an NBC News exit poll. While a greater share of white men—60 percent—also voted for a Republican president, it remains notable that not all women overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, speaking to broader political trends.
In summary, many stories drive the gendered voting gap in the United States. Among Black and Latino voters, there exists a modern gender gap, while women from these groups turn out to vote at greater rates than men do, propelling the broader gender gap. The Democratic Party’s stronger appeal to women, paired with rising male grievance, also solidifies this divide—a divide that has existed for decades in the United States.
The 1960s marked the rise of American women’s political participation, as liberation movements and the enfranchisement of women of color underpinned their political engagement and voting, respectively, shaping public life.
Reflecting upon Guilderland women’s 1960s protests, McKee discussed how this era inspired women’s increasing voice in political spaces.
“When you start speaking out, when you’re with like-minded men, and you gain more confidence, and you’re talking about something that they agree with already. That empowered more people,” McKee said. “[Women] cared more about the things that you know, traditionally would be called women’s issues, not realizing that if it’s a woman’s issue, it’s everybody’s issue.”