Bathroom stall memos. Celebrities on the road. And supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris pushing for the possibility of a secret ballot of Republican women, while Liz Cheney proclaims that women will “save the day.”
For the second time in ten years, a Democratic woman is running against Donald Trump in a presidential race. And once again the former president faces a persistent gender gap. It’s unusual for both the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns to target the same segment of voters, but as the race narrows, both Harris and Trump find themselves pulling out all the stops to mobilize women.
Come Election Day, female voters are much more likely to say they support Harris, with some polls showing the vice president with a double-digit lead. In an outlier poll by J. Ann Selzer for the Des Moines Register, Harris has edged ahead of Trump in Iowa, a state he won in 2016 and again in 2020. According to the survey, which does not reveal how it is weighted by party politics, the shift is driven in part by female voters aged 65 and older, who choose Harris by a two-to-one margin.
“Harris shows a clear lead on women, the question for tomorrow is whether this will be a historic event for a Democratic candidate,” said pollster for JL Partners Scarlett Maguire. “Indeed, we found that among undecided voters, the greatest hesitation to vote for Trump is related to concerns about what a conservative influence on his agenda would mean for women’s rights.”
Meanwhile, surveys show that Trump has built a solid lead among men. He has particularly tried to woo young male voters, appearing on the popular ‘All-in Podcast’ and others hosted by Joe Rogan; the Nelk boys; MIT-affiliated computer scientist Lex Fridman; and others.
Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway has a name for the two-way phenomenon: “It’s a double gender gap.”
The gender gap is large among both younger and older voters. A total of three recent NBC News polls, conducted in July, September and October, found Gen Z men supporting Trump by 10 points over Harris (51% to 41%), while Gen Z women by more than 40 points choose Harris (68% to 26%). According to the same polls, boomer men supported Trump over Harris 57% to 39%, while boomer women chose Harris 52% to 43%.
It’s not that Trump has ignored women voters. During the campaign, the former president pledged to be the “protector” of women, saying he would save them from loneliness, danger and fear “from all the problems” facing the country today.
Asked about his message to female voters who might be thinking about voting for Harris, Trump told NBC News over the weekend that a vote for Harris risks economic catastrophe, responding: “That you’re voting for the wrong person, and we will you end up falling into depression and you won’t be safe.
Trump’s campaign is making its own pitch to women voters in the final days of the race, hosting events with Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law and the co-chair of the Republican National Committee; former NASCAR driver Danica Patrick; South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem; Morgan Ortagus, a former senior official from the first Trump administration, and others. On Monday, in a battleground on the eve of Election Day, Trump invited Lara Trump and his daughter Tiffany to the stage.
His campaign has also enlisted former enemies and campaign rivals, with Megyn Kelly announcing Monday that she would appear at a rally in Pittsburgh where Trump would explain why she is voting for him, a call that comes after Kelly expressed concern that his campaign was not successful, sufficient acceptance was made among female voters. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published this afternoon, Nikki Haley urges Americans who, like her, may not “agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time” to vote for him over Harris, with whom she “almost always disagrees.” time.” Trump and Haley have not appeared on the campaign trail together in recent weeks, despite much speculation.
That’s because Trump has at times strayed from the message as he stormed the country in the final days of the campaign, attacking his political opponents, including Cheney, whom he called a “radical war hawk” — and a chicken hawk — at a rally. last week, when he wondered how the former Republican would feel on the front lines of a war.
The latest national NBC News poll shows how even a small shift in turnout could produce a different outcome for each party.
The poll shows Harris receiving support from 49% of registered voters, while Trump receives an identical 49%. Only 2% of voters indicate that they have not yet made a decision. The poll, conducted between October 30 and November 2, shows women supporting Harris by a margin of 16 percentage points (57%-41%) and men supporting Trump by 18 points (58%-40%).
Other outcomes, based on slightly different turnout scenarios, give a different picture of what the election results could be. In circumstances that are slightly more favorable to Republicans – with more men voting, as well as white voters and voters without a college degree – Trump gains an edge over Harris.
A small increase in turnout among female voters, white voters with college degrees and voters of color produces a result that puts Harris in the lead over Trump.
The Trump campaign has pointed to partisan turnout numbers as evidence that he is building an advantage through early voting. In a memo released Monday, the campaign cited data from veteran Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier to argue that numbers have fallen among female voters.
Comparing 2024 to 2020 is difficult because Covid messed up many voter practices in the previous contest and Trump actively discouraged mail-in voting more than he is doing this time.
Asked by NBC News why they think the gender gap is manifesting itself, two Arizona voters, one Democrat and one Republican, both suggested the reason comes down to abortion rights established in Roe v. Wade, which Harris has pledged to restore since the beginning . days of her campaign.
“It exists because many men never think about who brought them into this world,” said Lala Johnson, a telemed assistant who supports Harris.
“Well, reproductive rights has a lot to do with it, but I really don’t know,” said Ned McCarthy, 70, who supports Trump.
The gender gap is not new. Nearly every presidential election since 1980 has seen a split, which in recent decades has shown that Democrats have won among women voters. This was the case in 2016, when Hillary Clinton led women by double digits, and in 2020, when President Joe Biden also won female voters.
A Democratic official said that if women vote, the race is Harris’s to lose. As of Monday afternoon, women made up 53% of the roughly 77 million people who voted early or by mail, while men made up just 44%, according to data from NBC News.
At the same time, a Trump campaign official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told NBC News that their feeling about the race remains “cautiously optimistic.” Trump is helped by two-thirds of voters who say the nation is heading in the wrong direction, a continued advantage on the economy and the cost of living, and a rosy assessment of his presidency.
According to the NBC News poll, Harris is only 9 points ahead among Latino voters, 53%-44%, but the sample size is small and includes a larger margin of error compared to the overall survey.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
