By Susan Roberts and Whitney Ross Manzo
Undoubtedly, the defeat of a female presidential candidate in both 2016 and 2024 provides a unique opportunity to examine the continuing presence and nuances of a political gender gap. For example, one of the talking points in the aftermath of the 2024 election was that misogyny played a role in the result.
Prior to 2024's Election Day, social media was flooded with sexist memes depicting Democratic candidate Kamala Harris as a sex worker, a silly woman who only speaks in “word salad,” and alleging that she was too weak to stand up to America’s enemies. “I have never seen this fierce of an ecosystem organized to carry far-right tropes, stereotypes, and narratives than this election,” #ShePersisted co-founder Kristina Wilfore told Politico’s Women Rule.
In such a negative and hurtful atmosphere, as the New York Times put it, “Many wonder if a woman will ever be president.”
According to research Whitney has done with fellow Meredith professor David McLennan, it’s a fair question. Although women’s representation in government has improved over time, it has also stagnated at around one-third of seats available. Both 1992 and 2018 were labeled “Year of the Woman” for the large numbers of women that were elected in those years, but the United States has never elected a woman President. And, since at least 2018, we at the Meredith Poll have been noticing a rise in traditional views toward women candidates among younger voters.
Consider the following figure, showing the responses that men and women of different generations gave to the question of who makes a better political leader.
Created by Whitney Ross Manzo using Meredith Poll data
In positive news, a majority of both men and women across all age groups said that men and women would make equally good political leaders. Unsurprisingly, a small minority of men said that men make better political leaders, while a small minority of women said that women make better political leaders.
Surprisingly, however, nearly half (44.4 percent) of Gen Z men (those born between 1997 and 2012) said that men made better political leaders, which is by far the highest percentage we have ever seen on that question in the 10 years we have been asking it.
Additionally, while we might expect that more older women have traditional views about political leaders, preferring a man’s leadership to a woman’s, we did not expect 12.4 percent of Millennial women to do so as well.
These results from Millennial and Gen Z voters suggest that there will not be a woman president any time soon, because small but strong minorities of both generations--now the largest voting bloc in the United States--believe a woman is not up to the task, even with experienced political leaders like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.
If anything, the 2024 election demonstrated that a woman president is even less likely than it was in 2016, given that Harris did not win the popular vote while Clinton did.
Created by Whitney Manzo using data from Pew for 2016 and AP VoteCast for 2024
Further evidence that a woman president is likely not on the horizon for the United States is that the gender gaps in the 2024 election were smaller for most demographic groups than they were in 2016. As the above figure shows, the overall gender gap shrunk by 3 percentage points from 2016 to 2024.
This was not even across groups; for example, the gender gap among those aged 45+ was cut in half, from 18 to 9 percent, while the gender gap among Black voters only fell from 17 to 15 percent. The only group in which the gender gap grew from 2016 to 2024 was among Latino/Latinx voters. This means that women and men were closer together in their views in the 2024 election than they were in 2016 (except among Latino/Latinx voters).
Therefore, if misogyny did play a role in Harris’ defeat, it was due to the willing participation of many American women.
On the Issue of Abortion
The political gender gap was made even more relevant in the 2024 election given the centrality of the abortion issue in a post-Dobbs America. Even before her candidacy for the presidency, Kamala Harris was stumping for the Biden administration's fight to restore women’s reproductive rights.
In addition to numerous other states such as Minnesota and Texas, Harris highlighted abortion rights in the battleground states of Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Maryland. After becoming the Democratic candidate for president, Harris continued and amplified her emphasis on abortion access. Arguably, the issue of access to abortion was her campaign's leading theme. Consequently, examining the fate of proposed abortion ballot initiatives in the states provides a look inside the gender gap.
Voters in seven of ten states approved amending their state constitutions. With minor differences, the states of Missouri, Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, and New York enshrined access to abortion in their constitutions, and five of those votes could be classified as decisive. Nevada approved the amendment but requires approval again in 2026.
On the other side, South Dakota and Florida rejected pro-choice amendments. Nebraska, while still allowing abortion until 12 weeks, failed to secure expanded abortion rights in their constitution.
*FL required 60% to pass
Created by Susan Roberts and Whitney Manzo using data from New York Times
Created by Susan Roberts and Whitney Manzo using data from NBC News (Nov 6, 2024)
While these successes are good news for pro-choice advocates, voting numbers in these states did not translate into a victory for Kamala Harris. As the figure above shows, most of the states that voted for abortion rights also voted for President Trump (colored orange). That means large numbers of voters who wanted to protect abortion rights voted for the very person taking credit for endangering them.
Even among the states that voted for both abortion rights and Vice President Harris (colored blue), the vote differential was an average of 13%, which further demonstrates Harris’ inability to connect with the issue in voters’ minds.
Once again, the nation’s highest glass ceiling failed to fully break for a female president. And while some generational dynamics and policy positions may be moving in a potential positive direction, the future for female candidates serving as the nation’s chief executive remains politically elusive.
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Dr. Susan Roberts is a professor of political science at Davidson College.
Dr. Whitney Ross Manzo is an associate professor of political science at Meredith College, where she is also assistant director of the Meredith Poll and serves as pre-law advisor.
