Did sexism propel Donald Trump to power?

AS DEMOCRATS COME to phrases with their decisive loss, some have begun pointing fingers at a temptingly easy—and conveniently self-absolving—clarification: it was sexism. America is just not able to elect a feminine president, urged a number of information retailers, because it grew to become clear that voters had rejected a girl for the best workplace for a second time. Within the early hours of November sixth David Axelrod, a marketing campaign strategist turned political commentator, mentioned on CNN that anybody who claimed that sexism didn’t play a task in Ms Harris’s defeat was merely “unsuitable”. Patti Solis Doyle, who ran Hillary Clinton’s 2008 marketing campaign, mentioned to Politico that “the nation remains to be sexist and isn’t prepared for a lady president.”

In the meantime, indignant younger girls have taken to TikTok and different social-media channels to name on one another to emulate South Korea’s feminist 4B motion, which rejects intercourse and heterosexual relationship, in retaliation towards younger males voting for Mr Trump. “The excellent news is that males hate us, so there’s no level in catering to them,” begins one video that rapidly attracted over 1.3m likes. “No extra kitty cat” for males, provides one other.

But there’s little proof that Ms Harris misplaced due to sexism, and many that she didn’t. She suffered from structural disadvantages, together with her ties to an unpopular presidency and perceptions of a foul financial system, that had nothing to do together with her intercourse. Whereas a minority of People do maintain overtly sexist views, together with the concept males are emotionally higher suited to politics, they’re clustered in Mr Trump’s base and so had been by no means prone to vote for Ms Harris anyway. And at first look, these states with the next prevalence of sexist views (in line with metrics devised by economists on the College of Chicago, Northwestern College and Nationwide College Singapore) seem to have been no extra prone to have swung in direction of Mr Trump than states with decrease ranges of sexism.

Analysis means that the citizens, on common, will not be influenced by a candidate’s intercourse after they enter the voting sales space. A meta-study, by Susanne Schwarz, now of Swarthmore Faculty, and Alexander Coppock, of Yale, discovered that some voters (significantly if they’re Democrats or girls) are barely extra supportive of hypothetical feminine candidates. And in contrast to Mrs Clinton, Ms Harris all through her marketing campaign managed to keep away from one of many few issues that research counsel can measurably damage a feminine candidate’s probabilities with male voters: emphasising the historic nature of her candidacy.

None of that is to say that Ms Harris didn’t face sexist assaults. T-shirts and caps offered at Trump rallies had been emblazoned with “F*** Joe and the Hoe” and “Biden Sucks, Kamala Swallows”. A now-deleted advert, by Elon Musk’s PAC, repeatedly known as her “a giant outdated c-word”. After she was introduced because the Democratic nominee, sexist language on-line surged, generally fuelled by Mr Trump himself. Google searches for Ms Harris with the phrase “bitch” rocketed, a lot as they did after Mrs Clinton introduced her candidacy.

However gender might be each extremely related in an election and but not damage the probabilities of a feminine candidate. One cause for the hypothesis that sexism influenced the end result is that this election grew to become seen as a “battle of the sexes”—stoked by feedback reminiscent of J.D. Vance’s about “childless cat girls”—and a referendum on girls’s rights. Due to this, a number of analysts predicted that the gender voting hole might attain a brand new excessive as girls flocked to Ms Harris and males to Mr Trump.

With solely exit-poll knowledge to go on, it’s too early to attract agency conclusions. However clearly the central Democratic hope of mobilising girls in unprecedented numbers didn’t materialise. Based on early estimates, girls didn’t make up a bigger share of the voting inhabitants than in 2020, and there’s little proof to date to counsel that the gender hole widened. Damningly, there’s a lot to counsel that girls (at the very least modestly) pivoted to Mr Trump. The place in 2020 some 55% of girls general voted for Mr Biden, AP VoteCast estimates that in 2024 Harris’s share slipped to 53%.

It seems that one of many few teams with whom Ms Harris gained floor in contrast with Joe Biden in 2020 had been white college-educated girls. Her help amongst black girls remained steady even because it slipped amongst Hispanic girls (though a majority nonetheless supported her). As in 2020, a majority of white girls appear to have voted for Mr Trump. In the meantime, Mr Trump’s lead amongst white males seems to not have elevated, however he did see significant bumps amongst Hispanic men and younger black males.

What got here of the Gen Z “gender schism”? Within the remaining stretch of the election, Mr Trump and Ms Harris actively courted younger males and younger girls, respectively. Earlier than November fifth pollsters had been divided on how a lot weight to provide to the concept younger women and men had been rising aside. That is the era more than likely to say they deceive family members about how they vote, so it’s laborious to know the way sincere they’re with pollsters. The primary exit-poll knowledge paint a equally combined image, and it’s too early to say whether or not the youth gender hole widened. Though speak of radicalisation of all younger males is overblown—about half nonetheless voted for Ms Harris—Mr Trump has been profitable in interesting to grievances amongst massive segments of this age group.

What is evident is that the (comparatively) younger didn’t save Ms Harris. Fairly the alternative. Among the many under-45s, in line with AP VoteCast, the swing in direction of Mr Trump was comparable amongst each women and men and far higher than the very marginal shift within the over-45s. As an alternative, younger individuals are the group who’ve shifted farthest, no matter gender or race. This isn’t the important thing variable for explaining Trump’s vote, it’s the important thing variable explaining the swing. For a celebration that had hoped to depend on each a gender- and a youth-quake, that’s damning. ■