Female voters were expected to turn out in droves for Kamala Harris on Election Day. There was an advertising blitz encouraging conservative women to vote for Harris in secret. There was a bold proclamation by anti-Donald Trump Republican Liz Cheney that women would “save the day” Tuesday. And polling showed Harris held an impressive 20-point lead over Trump on the issue of abortion.
None of it was nearly enough for Harris to clinch the presidency.
Political scholars and pollsters say Trump handily defeated Harris despite his weaknesses on issues such as abortion because of areas in which he connected so strongly with voters — specifically his claim that he would fix the economy and his commitment to being different from the current administration.
“When you look at the exit poll, what is the issue that was most important? It was the economy and people feeling like they couldn’t make ends meet and that inflation was having a negative impact on their lives,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
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“The challenge Kamala Harris had was while she was not Joe Biden, she is Joe Biden’s vice president, and trying to unhook herself from that when the president himself had such a high disapproval rate was really difficult,” she said.
Data from NBC News’ exit polling in 10 key states as of 7 p.m. ET Wednesday showed large gender gaps for the candidates: Among men, who made up 47% of the electorate, Harris won 42% of the vote and Trump won 55%. Among women, who made up 53% of the electorate, 53% voted for Harris and 45% for Trump.
Broken down by race and education, the gender gap showed even wider splits in some cases: An overwhelming 91% of Black women voted for Harris vs. 7% who voted for Trump, and 57% of college-educated white women voted for Harris vs. 41% who voted for Trump.
Decision 2024
But among white female non-college graduates, only 35% voted for Harris vs. 63% who voted for Trump.
“There is this educational divide in this country which has become much more pronounced in terms of voting behavior,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research, who conducted the final NBC News poll before the election with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. “Yes, abortion is a really, really fundamental issue to the election, but when you’re looking at particularly white women and white non-college-educated women, inflation, cost of living and other issues weaken her margins with those voters.”
A majority of voters in exit polling — 65% — said they supported abortion being legal, and 93% of all voters expressed more trust in Harris to handle abortion compared with just 5% who put their trust in Trump. But just 14% of voters said abortion mattered the most to their votes when they were asked to choose out of five issues. The economy was the most pressing issue for most voters, with 32% ranking it first.
Harris is the second woman Trump has defeated in the race for president. That does not mean that Americans are not ready for a female president, Walsh said, pointing out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016.
But, she added, Harris faced an enormous uphill battle, especially because she had so little time to introduce her stances on all the issues after Biden announced he was dropping out of the race.
“When a woman of color is running for that job, it is completely upending all the stereotypes about who can lead, and she had less than 200 days to do that,” she said.
Trump’s win prompted a range of reactions from female voters.
In Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Jessica Elliott said she voted for Trump because she felt he would “allow us to go in the right direction” with the economy, her primary concern.
“I’m a single mom who’s got a daughter who’s full-time, and groceries are hard. Gas is hard. Things are expensive,” she said. “Budgets are really, really, really stretched thin.”
In Phoenix, the capital of the swing state of Arizona, small-business owner Alexandria Bielek cried Wednesday before she described how disappointed she felt, especially as a woman.
“I’m feeling devastated,” said Bielek, 50. “I’m 100% positive that within the next four years, there’s going to be a national abortion ban.”
She said she had hoped for a different outcome.
“I just thought that the other choice was so despicable that she was really going to have a chance, especially not campaigning very heavily on the fact that she was a woman,” Bielek said.
In her concession speech Wednesday, Harris encouraged supporters to continue to fight for the future they want to see in the country.
She told young people to never give up.
“You have power,” she said. “And don’t you ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before.”
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