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Women Are Not a Voting Bloc: Why Democratic Appeals to White Republican Women Didn’t Widen the Gender Gap

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2025

Catherine N. Wineinger Open the ORCID record for Catherine N. Wineinger [Opens in a new window]
Catherine N. Wineinger*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, https://ror.org/05wn7r715 Western Washington University , Bellingham, WA, USA
*
Email: wineinc@wwu.edu
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Extract

The 2024 presidential election was historic in many ways, but one trend did not buck the norm: the gender gap. Indeed, despite Kamala Harris becoming the first Black and South Asian woman to win a majority party’s nomination, the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, and clear attempts by the Harris campaign to win over white Republican women voters, “gender differences in vote choice in the 2024 elections were remarkably similar to recent presidential elections” (CAWP 2024). This essay highlights the long-term ideological and demographic shifts among party constituencies that can help to explain why Republican women cast their vote for Donald Trump, even in a uniquely gendered political landscape.

Type
Critical Perspectives Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2025 , pp. 369 - 375
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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