Will the gender gap sway the vote in Pennsylvania?
Laura Esposito & Anya Sostek / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday afternoon, Tori Casarella and three fellow female University of Pittsburgh students, sat near Schenley Plaza behind a yellow folding table with a sign taped on the front that read “Register to vote today.” All were members of Project 26, a non-partisan student organization named as tribute to the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18.
Project 26 aims to register students to vote, regardless of political affiliation. But as individuals, the women said they were all supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Ms. Casarella, a junior at Pitt, and her friends have noticed a gender gap in the upcoming election, with women like themselves drawn more toward Ms. Harris, and more men drawn toward former President Donald Trump. For them, it’s become a dating and friendship gap as well — these women have no interest in consorting with male Trump supporters.
“The major gap between male and females is [due to] the issues that we're going to be facing in the upcoming election,” said Ms. Casarella, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. “Because of systemic issues, women feel a need to continue educating themselves and prove themselves, and as a result [we’re] more aware of issues — maybe in a way that men aren't or don't feel the need to be.”
The gender gap — or, a difference between men’s and women’s preferred candidates — has been a feature of presidential elections for the last 44 years, first showing up in the 1980 cycle when Ronald Reagan won by 8 percentage points among men. It has persisted since, but polling suggests that percentage will soar to new heights in 2024.
“It looks like we’re in the neighborhood of a 14-point gender gap, which would be the highest that we’ve ever seen,” said Stephen Medvic, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
In the most recent NY Times/Siena poll of 3,385 likely voters, Ms. Harris had a 14-point edge among women, while Trump had a 13-point edge among men.
The gender gap, according to research from the American Survey Center, is twice as large among voters aged 18 to 29. Young female voters are 12 percentage points more likely to support the vice president than young male voters are (57% and 45%).
Abortion on the ballot
The 2020 presidential election cycle, when then-candidate Joe Biden boasted a 12-point edge among women, offered the highest gender gap to date. But that election took place before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which in 2022 overturned the abortion protections of Roe v. Wade.
“We can’t have this conversation without talking about abortion,” said Daniel Hopkins, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Abortion was the second-most important issue in the campaign overall, as identified by those who took part in the NYTimes/Siena poll. While 21% of women chose it as their most important issue, only 6% of men did.
“Among the set of people who view it is a very important issue — the people who view the Dobbs decision negatively — will vote on that issue, will attend rallies on that issue — those tend to be women,” Mr. Hopkins said.
Recently on Pitt’s campus, anti-abortion sentiments, such as “Love them both, babies lives matter, too” and “defund Planned Parenthood,” were seen scribbled on sidewalks throughout campus.
Choose Life at Pitt, an anti-abortion student organization, took credit for the initiative in a social media post. “We truly loved spreading the pro-love pro-life movement on campus,” the post reads. Of the five photos displayed on the organization’s website, one shows a dozen young adult men, standing with arms crossed, wearing matching shirts affiliated with Choose Life.
Kamal Imaya, a pre-med student at Pitt, said in a recent interview at Schenley Plaza that abortion rights are a primary factor in the political strife between young men and women voters.
“Men have definitely suppressed women when it comes to voicing their opinions — obviously the biggest [way] is Roe versus Wade, women didn't really get a say for their own bodies, and that's really not good at all,” said Mr. Imaya, 20, of Chester County.
“Abortion rights is on the ballot, and that should be a big push for women to vote,” he said. “And the stakes are really high: PA is a place that decides [elections].”
‘A hyper-masculine approach’
In addition to the importance of abortion in influencing the gender gap, this presidential campaign is also notable for the tone taken by the Trump campaign, which has both appealed to some men and turned off some women.
“The rhetoric of the Trump campaign and his running mate, JD Vance, has been pretty gendered,” said Mr. Medvic. “It’s a hyper-masculine approach.”
The Republican National Convention, for example, featured wrestler Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt off during a speech endorsing the former president. At the convention and at Trump’s rallies, the James Brown song “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” is played regularly.
Mr. Vance stirred up ire among some women — including Taylor Swift — when comments he made in 2021 about “childless cat ladies” resurfaced this summer.
Both presidential candidates, however, have made efforts in recent weeks to appeal to the other side of the gender gap.
At a rally in Indiana, Pa., last month, Mr. Trump cast himself as a “protector” of women, saying he would save them from fear and loneliness, and they will no longer have to think about abortion.
Ms. Harris spent time in the last week working to appeal to Black men specifically, doing interviews with several popular Black male podcast hosts and meeting with Black men at a coffee shop in Erie on Monday.
While campaigning for Ms. Harris in Pittsburgh, former President Barack Obama called out Black men and their possible motivations for voting for Trump.
"Part of it makes me think — and I'm speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that," he said.
Whether a widening gender gap has to do with these two candidates specifically or diverging priorities generally among men and women remains to be seen. Historically, the gender gap hasn’t necessarily behaved as expected.
“A little bit more than 100 years ago, when the franchise was extended to women, the argument was that women would vote very differently,” said Mr. Hopkins. “It may be that it’s only quite a bit later with a very different structured society that we’re seeing the full possibilities.”