Memos on bathroom stalls. Celebrities on the trail. And supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris girding for the possibility of a secret vote from Republican women as Liz Cheney proclaims that women “will save the day.”
For the second time in a decade, a Democratic woman is running against Donald Trump in a presidential race. And once again, the former president is facing a persistent gender gap. It is unusual that both Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns are focused on the same slice of voters, but as the race narrows, both Harris and Trump have found themselves pulling out the stops to mobilize women.
Going into Election Day, female voters are much more likely to say they support Harris, with some polls showing the vice president holding a double-digit advantage. In an outlier poll from J. Ann Selzer for the Des Moines Register, Harris has leaped ahead of Trump in Iowa, a state he won in 2016 and again in 2020. According to the survey, which does not disclose how it is weighted to party affiliation, the shift is in part driven by women voters aged 65 and over, who are breaking for Harris by a two-to-one margin.
“Harris is showing a clear lead with women, the question for tomorrow is whether it will be a historic one for a Democrat candidate,” a pollster for J.L. Partners Scarlett Maguire said. “Indeed, we have found that amongst undecided voters the biggest hesitation about voting Trump relates 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 with men. He has in particular sought to court 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 phenomenon that goes both ways: “It’s a double gender gap.”
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The gender gap is wide among both younger and older voters. An aggregate of three recent NBC News polls, conducted in July, September and October, found that Gen Z men are supporting Trump over Harris by 10 points (51% to 41%) while Gen Z women are going for Harris by over 40 points (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. On the campaign trail, the former president has promised to be the “protector” of women, saying that he will save them from loneliness, danger and anxiety “from all of the problems” facing the nation today.
Asked about his message to women 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’ll end up in a depression, and you’re not going to be safe.”
Trump's campaign is making its own pitch to women voters in the waning days of the race by hosting events featuring Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law and the Republican National Committee co-chair; former NASCAR driver Danica Patrick; South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem; Morgan Ortagus, a former senior official from the first Trump administration, and others. On Monday, Trump, at a battleground on the eve of Election Day, invited Lara Trump and his daughter Tiffany to the stage.
His campaign has also enlisted onetime foes and campaign rivals, with Megyn Kelly announcing Monday that she would appear at a Pittsburgh rally for Trump to explain why she is voting for him, an appeal that comes after Kelly expressed concern that his campaign wasn’t making sufficient inroads with women 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 disagrees “nearly all the time.” Trump and Haley haven't appeared together on the campaign trail in the final weeks, in spite of much speculation.
This comes as Trump has at times veered off message as he barnstorms the country in the final days of the campaign, and attacked his political adversaries, including Cheney, whom he called a "radical war hawk" — and a chicken hawk — during a rally last week, wondering how the former Republican would feel on the front lines of a war.
The final national NBC News poll shows how even a slight shift in turnout could deliver a different outcome for each party.
The poll shows Harris getting support from 49% of registered voters while Trump gets an identical 49%. Just 2% of voters say they are undecided. The poll, conducted between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2, finds women backing Harris by a 16 percentage-point margin (57%-41%) and men supporting Trump by 18 points (58%-40%).
Other outcomes based on slightly different turnout scenarios offer a different picture of what the election’s results could be. In conditions slightly more favorable for Republicans — with more men turning out to vote, as well as white voters and voters without a college degree — Trump gains an edge over Harris.
A small increase in turnout by women voters, white voters with college degrees and voters of color, delivers a result that puts Harris in the lead over Trump.
The Trump campaign has been pointing to partisan turnout numbers as evidence that he is building an advantage with early voting. In a memo released Monday, the campaign cites data from veteran Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier to argue that numbers are down among women voters.
Comparing 2024 to 2020 is difficult because in the previous contest Covid scrambled many voters practices and Trump was actively discouraging voting by mail more than he is doing this time.
Asked by NBC News why they think the gender gap is playing out, two Arizona voters, a Democrat and Republican, both suggested the reason boils down to abortion rights that were enshrined in Roe v. Wade, which Harris has vowed to restore since the early days of her campaign.
“It exists because a lot of men don’t ever think about who brought them into this world,” said Lala Johnson, a telemed assistant supporting Harris.
“Well, reproductive rights have a lot to do with it, but I really don’t know,” said Ned McCarthy, 70, who’s supporting Trump.
The gender gap isn’t new. Since 1980, nearly every presidential election has seen a split, which in recent decades has shown Democrats winning with women voters. This was the case in 2016, when Hillary Clinton led women by double digits, and in 2020, when President Joe Biden won women voters as well.
A Democratic official said that if women turn out to vote, the race is Harris’ to lose. As of Monday afternoon, women accounted for 53% of the roughly 77 million people who have voted early or by mail, according to NBC News data, while men make up just 44%.
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 aided by the two-thirds of voters who say the nation is moving in the wrong direction, a persistent advantage on the economy and cost of living, and a rosy assessment of his presidency.
Harris is ahead by just 9 points among Latino voters, 53%-44%, according to NBC News’s poll, however the sample size is small and it includes a larger margin of error compared to the overall survey.
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