The “women’s vote” refers to the difference in support among the major party candidates exclusively from female voters. This advantage, measured in percentage points, has fluctuated between four and twelve points since 1980. In every presidential election, a larger proportion of women have favored the Democrat compared to men. A gender gap arises when women and men, even if they support the same candidate, do so by varying margins. This indicates a disparity between the percentage of women and men voting for a particular candidate, typically the one who emerges victorious.
Since the 2020 election, a majority of men voted for Republican candidate Donald Trump, while a majority of women favored Democratic candidate Joe Biden as the victor. In the 2008 presidential elections, with the exception of John McCain, a Republican candidate, and Barack Obama, a Democrat candidate, men and women were almost equally divided in their preferences. However, since the 1996 presidential election, a majority of women have consistently preferred Democratic candidates.
Data demonstrate that women do not form a unified voting group. Among white, Black, Latinx, and Asian American voters, women are more inclined than men to indicate their support for the Democratic candidate. However, ever since the 2000 presidential election, when white women were almost evenly divided between Democrat Al Gore and Republican victor George W. Bush, a majority of white women have consistently voted for the Republican candidate. In contrast, a significant majority of Black, Latinx, and Asian women have consistently backed the Democratic candidate throughout the period in which data has been segregated by gender and race.
To directly retrieve the information provided below, kindly download the subsequent Excel file: Gender Gap Exit Poll Data.
Approach and References:
Surveys conducted by CES (Cooperative Election Study) and the Edison Exit Poll have been recognized for their robust and sophisticated methodology, which includes access to multilingual surveys to reach a greater number of respondents, particularly minority racial voters. In analyzing the voting behavior and gender trends in the 2020 elections, it is important to consider the findings and surveys from Latino Decisions, as well as the limitations in their sampling. In addition to the national exit poll conducted by Edison Research’s VoteCast and the Associated Press, major media outlets such as the Washington Post, ABC News, NBC News, and CBS News also conducted separate exit polls. These polls, conducted for the first time in the 2020 elections after nearly two decades, showed similar gender gaps of similar magnitude to those evident in the exit polls conducted by major media outlets in previous elections, archived at Cornell University’s Roper Center. However, it is worth noting that the CBS/New York Times exit polls, which also showed similar gender gaps of similar magnitude, were not included in this analysis. Furthermore, prior to 1992, there were no national exit polls conducted by the Edison/Voter News Service. The data presented here includes national exit poll data from 1992 to 2020, previously known as Surveys and Research Voter, conducted by the Edison/Voter News Service.