The Daily Escape:
If youâre looking for some hope going into the weekend, The Bulwarkâs Dan McGraw has an incisive piece about how important the gender gap is for the 2024 election. He thinks as in 2022, thereâs a strong case that women could give Harris a significant turnout advantage:
âMore women than men have voted in every presidential election going back to 1964 and the current gap between them (between 5 million and 10 million votes per election) has been stable since 2004.â
Hereâs a chart demonstrating the difference:
Trump has not historically done well with women voters. In 2016, Trump was -15 with women. He gained ground in 2020, losing women by -11. These losses were partially offset by his poorer margins with men: He was +11 in 2016 and +2 in 2020.
So thatâs his baseline. Hereâs one big question about 2024: Will the difference in turnout between women and men be higher, lower, or the same as it was in 2016 and 2020?
From McGraw:
âIf I had to bet, Iâd guess that the delta increases. Why? Because the vote gap has been fairly stable going back to 2004 and Trump has intentionally antagonized women this cycle. Negative polarity is currently the greatest motivating force in our politics… I do not expect increases in menâs turnout to keep pace with increases in womenâs turnout.â
In 2016 Trump only got 39% of the womenâs vote. It is not inconceivable that he could go lower. Indeed, for the last few days itâs looked like heâs trying to go lower. Starting in October, Trump thought itâd be a good idea to present himself as a âprotectorâ who would save women from fear and unhappiness. As October ends, he said the following which probably wonât do his campaign any favors. From NBC News : (emphasis by Wrongo)
âFormer President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would âprotectâ women âwhether the women like it or not,â a comment the Harris campaign immediately pounced on. Trump said at his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that his âpeopleâ previously told him they did not think he should say that he wanted to âprotect the women of our country,â comments he has previously made on the campaign trail.â
Thatâs some creepy paternalism right there.
This election looks very close, making either outcome relatively high-probability. Itâs possible that everything will be too close to call and weâll end the week with six different states at Floridaâs 2000 contested level:
And there are signs in the polling that Harris has more support among women than Trump has among men this cycle. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll has Trump winning men by 51-45%, (+6) while Harris is at 56-42% (+14) with women (all likely voters).
And the Harris margin is being repeated in swing states:
âA CNN poll released showed similar trends. It had Harris +8 with women and running even with men in Michigan. It had her running +19 with women with Trump +12 with men in Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania a Quinnipiac University poll of the commonwealth released the same day showed men backing Trump by 57-37%, while women backed Harris 55-39%.â
Off topic, but Trump seems to also be having issues with Seniors (+65) in PA. According to a Fox News poll of Pennsylvania, Trump is running 5 percentage points behind Harris among voters ages 65 and over, down from the previous month, when he and Harris were tied with Seniors. Itâs a major shift from 2020, when Trump carried 53 percent of the senior vote in Pennsylvania and lost the state.
This could be big since the senior vote is particularly important in five of the seven battleground states â Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. According to US Census data, these states have more residents over the age of 65Â than the national average. According to modeling data across the Blue Wall states, Democratic voters over the age of 65 are running 10 to 20% ahead of their Republican counterparts with respect to registered turnout.
The conclusion? Nothing is definitive:
- If women are more likely to vote than men, and if women are more supportive of Harris than men are of Trumpâespecially in key swing statesâthen Harris should win.
- Itâs possible that Harris will underperform, Trump will overperform, and heâll get a solid, clean Electoral College win.
- But it is also possible that Harris blows the doors off with women voters. That she both (1) increases that 10-million-vote advantage in womenâs turnout and (2) explodes the gender gap. If that happens, she wins comfortably. Maybe even comfortably enough that we know it by late Tuesday night.
One way this could go is that Harris picks up a handful of points with white women, the single largest demographic group in the election. She could also boost the overall turnout of black and Hispanic women.
Try to get into a relaxing head space for the weekend. This may be Wrongoâs last column before Tuesday, so the battle is on hold until we see results.
Give any spare change to your local Congressional candidate. Thatâs where the hope is. Itâs not quite a heat wave in Connecticut, but sitting outdoors and watching the leaves fall while listening to the Telemannâs  âConcerto for 4 Violins No.2 in D Majorâ performed live by Hoing Kim in 2023 will tie the hopium for Harris together with the beautiful weather: