This is not a polling story. It’s critical I state that fact right up front, because if you’ve practiced any sort of self-care over the past few torturous months of this election, it’s been to scroll past polling analysis about the presidential race like it’s a pop-up ad for foot cream or adult diapers.
Each new data point attributed to a target population contradicts the last one. Latino voters are gravitating toward former President Trump, or are they? White suburbanites are breaking for Vice President Kamala Harris, or not. As for Black voters, the expectation is that Harris has them in the bag, but wait, does she? Click on this new stomach-turning poll to find out.
And what’s the point, when the upshot always seems to be the same: We have no idea if the race really is this tight, but we’d like to panic you anyway.
If there is an entertaining upside to the barrage of nerve-jangling graphs and exhaustive explainers, it’s the obsession pundits, analysts and the news media in general have with the habits of a creature they find infinitely fascinating, the American male voter.
You could fill Madison Square Garden and the Ellipse with the number of stories focused on where male energy is amassing in this election. How will young men vote? What about men’s economic concerns? Trump is gaining support among men of color, say some polls. On the other hand, Harris may be gaining ground with Black men … while she’s losing with Latino men.
To fully understand this complex swath of the American electorate, there’s been no shortage of wide-lens examinations into the political leanings of the Y chromosome set. We’ve learned that Gen Z men are feeling gloomy about the future. And in case you’re still unclear about what masculinity looks like in 2024, here’s a primer ahead of Nov. 5.
Judging from the torrent of polling divinations, spirited debate and reportage dedicated to the potential ballot choices of our sons, brothers, husbands and uncles, women’s voting trends must be stagnant or just simpler, right?
Of course not, but inherent gender bias — most of it likely unintentional — ensures less complex assessments of available data by those who squeeze narratives out of the numbers. One such example would be the assumption that women’s preferences are more predictable now that abortion and the chance to elect our first female president are on the ballot.
The 2022 midterms showed the power of the female vote. Though it was the first election post-Dobbs decision, a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, a majority of pundits predicted a red wave. But it never happened and Republicans instead underperformed. It’s now understood that one of the reasons those predictive models and analysts got it wrong was because they underestimated female voters. Despite a plethora of forecasts that assumed the loss of reproductive rights would not sway the election, Dobbs played a major role in turning that red wave into a pink tsunami.
Now the inclination is to lean into lessons learned in 2022. Remember that women pay attention to abortion rights and gender … and maybe some other stuff. While there is some analysis of women’s economic concerns, it’s scant compared with the deep dives into the concerns of male voters. As for what femininity looks like in this election year? Who knows.
Three recent New York Times/Siena national polls found that Trump leads Harris among young men, 58% to 37%. Harris holds an even larger lead among young women, 67-28. “Surprisingly, Ms. Harris is faring no better than Mr. Biden did among young men in the Times/Siena data, even as she’s made significant gains among young women,” wrote Nate Cohn.
If her support among men is about the same, wouldn’t the fresh news be that she’s made “significant gains” for Democrats among women? Yet the headline read, “The Evidence for a Big Youth Gender Gap and a Right Turn for Young Men.”
Even now, as polls track a spike in early voting among women, a predominant focus is how that trend translates into a loss of male votes.
Fixating on the male voter does make sense in other quarters, like a controversial ad created by the Progress Action Fund now airing in swing states. It uses the intrinsically female issue of abortion and turns it into an issue for men. In the ad, a couple are having sex when his condom breaks. She tells her partner that there’s Plan B (the morning-after pill used to prevent pregnancy) in the bathroom.
He finds the medication in the cabinet over the sink, but is startled by the sudden appearance of an older, suit-clad man behind him. “Sorry, you can’t use that,” says the stranger, who then identifies himself. “I’m your Republican congressman. Now that we’re in charge, we banned Plan B.”
“You can’t do this,” pleads the young man. “I can’t have a kid right now.” The GOP congressman is unmoved. “I won the last election, so it’s my decision. Now let’s get back in there so we can give her the news, Daddy.”
If the Harris campaign can peel away from Trump some of those voters that pollsters and ruminators find so fascinating, she has a good shot at winning. I’d tell you just how many of those men are likely to vote for her, but this isn’t a polling story.