There’s been a gender gap in American politics for years. But an analysis from the Brookings Institution from earlier this year finds that gap is increasing among young voters between the ages of 18 and 29.
The data shows in general, young women are becoming more Democratic in their political affiliation than young men.
The Show talked about why, and what this could mean with Samara Klar, a political science professor at the University of Arizona.
Full conversation
SAMARA KLAR: It seems as though a widening gender gap in what we have had in the past. You know, typically there’s always a bit of a gender gap where women tend to support the Democratic Party at higher rates than men. Although I will say that that is usually concentrated mostly among nonwhite women who support the Democratic Party at really, really high rates. And so they really contribute to that gap.
But that’s getting even bigger now, where we’re seeing larger gaps — especially in swing states, where women are supporting Kamala Harris at significantly higher rates. And whether men are getting more conservative is a little more tenuous. We’re not seeing consistent evidence to suggest that that is the case, but women are absolutely becoming more liberal in their vote choices.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah. I’m curious why that is. Like, why do we see the gender gap widening, as you say?
KLAR: Well, you know, it’s going to be a lot of speculation, and people are trying to figure that out. But I think one pretty solid theory is the issues that are really salient right now do … among women, primarily abortion and reproductive rights. We also have women who are voting for the first time. So young women or women who maybe are new to the United States or recent citizens. And for them, they’re forming their partisan attachments at a time when reproductive rights is very high on the agenda. So having that mobilize them can impact their party affiliation now and potentially for the rest of their lives.
BRODIE: So it sounds like what you’re saying is, as with so many things in life, with political affiliation and this kind of thing, timing is everything.
KLAR: Yes, exactly. And the party that you choose when you first start voting can be very influential over the course of your life. And that’s why mobilizing young people is so important to both parties, because they feel as though if they can get them young, they can keep them for life. And to become a first-time voter when reproductive rights are all over the news, what people are thinking about, what is important to people, that’s going to have a big impact on women in particular.
BRODIE: So is this to suggest that, for example, reproductive rights are not important to men generally? Are they not as important to men as maybe they are to women when it comes to who they’re going to vote for?
KLAR: You know, when we poll on reproductive rights, everyone says it’s important. Republicans say it’s important. Democrats say it’s important. Men think it’s important. Women think it’s important. So we don’t have a lot of people saying, “Nah this isn’t really a real big issue for me.” But what we see with voting choices, it seems like probably for women it can be more mobilizing.
Now, an important thing to keep in mind with abortion is that Democratic men are very pro-choice. I mean at comparable levels to Democratic women. But when it comes to the importance of the issue, it looks as though it is probably driving women’s votes at higher rates.
BRODIE: So it sounds like maybe it is an important issue, but maybe not the most, or maybe not the top type of issue that will lead a particular voter — in this case, a male voter — to pick a candidate.
KLAR: Absolutely. And it’s funny because when we ask people, “Is this issue important? Is immigration important? Is the economy important?” It’s all important, and everyone has to say “Yes, that’s important. This is important. This is important.” So it’s kind of hard to parse that out from survey data because it’s unusual for someone to say an issue is unimportant, especially when there are so many important issues that impact us.
But when it comes down to actually showing up at the polls, actually supporting a candidate, that’s where it looks as though women are supporting pro-choice candidates at higher rates than men. And that is largely, I would suggest, driving this growing gender gap.
BRODIE: OK. Are there other non-political ramifications here in terms of men and women seeing things differently?
KLAR: It’s hard to say. There is a lot of data out there suggesting that marriages are more politically homogenous than they once were. So for example, men and women agree within their marriage on politics more than they used to. And that’s using data going back several decades. There’s a lot of reasons for that. Potentially one reason is that women in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s were not as outwardly involved in politics on average. And now women are voting at equal or higher rates than men.
Now, if women become more democratic than men, then potentially we’ll see a little more diversity in relationships. Or people might start to switch. They start to persuade each other, and maybe we’ll see a little more intermarriage persuasion going on.
BRODIE: Right. So what kind of impact do you think it has on this gender gap that one of the major party candidates is now a woman?
KLAR: Well, we very rarely will find Republicans or Democrats switching their party vote in order to support a woman. In fact, I’ve actually done some research showing that Republican and Democratic women have very different ideas of what it even means to be a woman. So for Republicans, seeing a Democratic women woman doesn’t necessarily persuade them.
And the same can be said for Democratic women. We rarely, if ever, we’ll find a Democratic woman saying, “You know what, I’m going to vote for the Republicans this year because they have a woman candidate.” But for people voting for the first time, for young women voting for the first time, be very important. Seeing that kind of a representation may increase Democratic affiliation among first-time voters.
BRODIE: You kind of alluded to this, but I want to ask more specifically how racial differences kind of play into the gender gap and how different ethnic groups might be at play in here as well.
KLAR: Sure. For many years, scholars found that there is a big gender gap where women are supporting Democrats at much higher rates than men are. But people then started to notice that’s actually largely attributed to nonwhite women. In fact, white women do support Republican candidates at higher rates than Democrats. Now they don’t support Republicans at the same rate as men.
But until I believe Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s election, women were voting for Republicans more often than they were voting for Democrats. White women, I should say. So nonwhite women play a huge role in this gender gap, because it is really nonwhite women who are supporting the Democrats at the highest rates.
BRODIE: I guess a lot of this kind of brings the question — and I wonder if we’re kind of making a mistake if we think of women voters as a monolith, like like women just vote this way. That seems like it’s not the case.
KLAR: I hesitate to think of, honestly, any group as a monolith because there’s so much political diversity within these groups, and that’s exactly right. The identity being a woman — I mean, first of all, that constitutes half of the population, roughly half the population. It’s an incredibly politically diverse group. Republican women are pro-life, just like Republican men. And partisanship is much more determinative of vote choice than gender. So when we talk about women, yes, we need to think of the intersection of many other identities — including, and especially I would say, race and ethnicity.
BRODIE: Again, you kind of alluded to this, but I want to ask a little bit more in depth. You mentioned how women are becoming more liberal, many women, anyway. Are we seeing that men are they kind of staying where they are and just not becoming as liberal as quickly as this group of women? Are they actually going the other direction and leaning more to the right? Do we know this?
KLAR: You know, that’s a question that I don’t think we have consistent evidence to answer. I would say on average, men are looking pretty stable in their vote choice. I have seen some surveys suggesting that younger men may be trending more conservative, but I don’t see enough consistent evidence to say that authoritatively. Generally, this gap is driven much more by women than it is by men. It’s women pulling away to the left and men more or less staying status quo.
