Current:Home > StocksAP VoteCast takeaways: Gender voting gap was unremarkable compared with recent history-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
AP VoteCast takeaways: Gender voting gap was unremarkable compared with recent history
View Date:2025-01-14 14:54:55
Follow live: Updates from AP’s coverage of the presidential election.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump ran a campaign centered on hypermasculinity, actively courting young men in particular with interviews on popular male-centric podcasts.
In the closing weeks of the campaign, the former president and many of his surrogates leaned into sexist remarks and jokes about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Some of his supporters, including former presidential rival Nikki Haley, warned that the former president risked exacerbating his persistent gender gap with Harris. Prominent surrogates from billionaire Elon Musk to Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point, called on men to vote in large numbers to counter Harris’ expected strength among women.
In the end, the gender voting gap was unremarkable by recent historical standards.
Here are some takeaways from AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide:
The gender gap was big but not unusual
Men were more likely than women to support President-elect Trump, the survey showed. That gap in voting preferences has largely remained the same, even as vote choice among men and women has moved modestly.
Harris had the advantage among women, winning 53% to Trump’s 46%, but that margin was somewhat narrower than President Joe Biden’s in 2020, according to the survey. In 2020, VoteCast showed Biden won 55% of women, while 43% went for Trump.
And it’s nothing new: The majority of women have preferred the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1996, according to the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.
Trump made inroads with men, too
Trump benefited from narrow gains among men and women both, with Harris modestly underperforming compared with Biden in 2020. Fifty-four percent of men backed Trump in 2024, compared with 51% in 2020.
The shifts by gender were concentrated among younger voters, as well as Black and Latino voters. White voters across genders and older voters across genders voted similarly in 2024 as they did in 2020.
Women under 30 voted for Harris over Trump, but it was a somewhat smaller majority supporting her, at 58%, than Biden in 2020, at 65%.
There was some indication that the Trump campaign’s overtures to young men worked: More than half of men under 30 supported Trump over Harris, but in 2020, the split was reversed.
Trump also about doubled his share of young Black men, cutting into a key Democratic voting group. About 3 in 10 Black men under the age of 45 went for Trump, roughly double the number he got in 2020. For their part, Latino men were less open to the Democratic nominee than they were in 2020. Roughly half of Latino men voted for Harris, down from about 6 in 10 who went for Biden.
Economic concerns cut across gender
This was the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade, and it was the second chance in history for Americans to elect their first female president.
Those issues, along with worries about the sexist rhetoric from the Trump camp, were important to many women. But concerns about immigration and inflation weighed more heavily on many voters and cut across gender lines.
Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said that while it may not have been main reason for his victory, Trump successfully tapped into fear that gender norms and power dynamics are being disrupted.
What to know about the 2024 election:
- The latest: Kamala Harris delivered a concession speech Wednesday after Donald Trump’s election victory.
- Balance of power: Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate, giving the GOP a major power center in Washington. Control over the House of Representatives is still up for grabs.
- AP VoteCast: Anxiety over the economy and a desire for change returned Trump to the White House. AP journalists break down the voter data.
- Voto a voto: Sigue la cobertura de AP en español de las elecciones en EEUU.
News outlets globally count on the AP for accurate U.S. election results. Since 1848, the AP has been calling races up and down the ballot. Support us. Donate to the AP.
Dittmar said the results showed that “a majority of voters were willing to disregard misogyny and racism, and some were even motivated by it.”
“We don’t always acknowledge the degree to which our citizens are actually invested in sexism or racism as it pertains to political power,” Dittmar said.
Only about 1 in 10 women said electing a woman president was the top factor in their votes, and 4 in 10 women said it wasn’t a motivator at all. Black women were the most driven by the possibility of the first woman president, with about a third saying it was the main factor in their vote choice.
About 9 in 10 Black women and 6 in 10 Latina women backed Harris. Just under half of white women supported the vice president.
___
Associated Press Writer Cora Lewis in New York contributed to this story.
___
AP VoteCast is a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for Fox News, PBS NewsHour, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. The survey of more than 120,000 voters was conducted for eight days, concluding as polls closed. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The survey combines a random sample of registered voters drawn from state voter files; self-identified registered voters using NORC’s probability based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population; and self-identified registered voters selected from nonprobability online panels. The margin of sampling error for voters is estimated to be plus or minus 0.4 percentage points. Find more details about AP VoteCast’s methodology at https://ap.org/votecast.
veryGood! (22578)
Related
- New Pentagon report on UFOs includes hundreds of new incidents but no evidence of aliens
- Can’t Talk Right Now, Aritzia’s Sale Has the Lowest Deals We’ve Ever Seen With Up to 70% Off Basics
- U.K. judge dismisses Donald Trump's lawsuit over Steele dossier
- Pennsylvania courts to pay $100,000 to settle DOJ lawsuit alleging opioid discrimination
- Song Jae-lim, Moon Embracing the Sun Actor, Dead at 39
- Wisconsin Supreme Court agrees to hear governor’s lawsuit against GOP-controlled Legislature
- Olympic skating coach under SafeSport investigation for alleged verbal abuse still coaches
- Tesla recalls 2.2 million cars — nearly all of its vehicles sold in the U.S. — over warning light issue
- Lala Kent Swears by This Virgo-Approved Accessory and Shares Why Stassi Schroeder Inspires Her Fall Style
- Tom Sandoval Sparks Dating Rumors With Model Victoria Lee Robinson
Ranking
- Can I take on 2 separate jobs in the same company? Ask HR
- European farmers rage at EU parliament in Brussels, but France protests called off after 2 weeks of mayhem
- How accurate are Punxsutawney Phil's Groundhog Day predictions?
- Black tennis trailblazer William Moore's legacy lives on in Cape May more than 125 years later
- New 'Yellowstone' is here: Season 5 Part 2 premiere date, time, where to watch
- Woman returns Costco couch after 2 years, tests limits of return policy: I just didn't like it anymore
- Dog rescued after more than a week trapped inside shipping container in Texas port
- 2nd defendant pleads guilty in drive-by shootings on homes of Democratic lawmakers
Recommendation
-
KFC sues Church's Chicken over 'original recipe' fried chicken branding
-
13-year-old boy fatally shot man whose leg was blocking aisle of bus, Denver police say
-
Oklahoma rattled by shallow 5.1 magnitude earthquake
-
As Mardi Gras nears, a beefed-up police presence and a rain-scrambled parade schedule in New Orleans
-
Food prices worried most voters, but Trump’s plans likely won’t lower their grocery bills
-
Charlamagne tha Pundit?; plus, was Tony Soprano white?
-
Power restored to BP oil refinery in Indiana after outage prompts evacuation, shutdown, company says
-
You Won't Believe What Austin Butler Said About Not Having Eyebrows in Dune 2