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From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues

Gender Gap

The gender gap is the difference between the proportion of women and the proportion of men who vote for the winning candidate in any given election. Despite suffragists’ hopes that women would become a voting bloc, the first hints of that phenomenon did not appear until 1952, 32 years after women gained voting rights. In 1952, women voted for successful Republican presidential nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower in greater percentages than men did. Women’s hopes that he could end the Korean War, which had begun in 1950, contributed to their support for Eisenhower. Almost another 30 years passed before political observers recognized another appearance of the gender gap. Since 1980, women have tended to vote for Democrats, and men have been more likely to vote for Republicans. Since the 1980 presidential race between Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Reagan, this tendency of women to vote for Democratic presidential candidates has continued. In 1996, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton was elected, with 11 percent more women than men voting for him. The gap persisted in the 2000 presidential election, with 53 percent of men and 43 percent of women voting for George W. Bush. Al Gore won 54 percent of women’s votes and 42 percent of men’s. The gap in the 2004 presidential elections was not as great, with 48 percent of women and 53 percent of men voting for George W. Bush.

In 2008, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama won with 54 percent of women’s votes and 48 percent of men’s, compared to Republican John McCain who attracted 43 percent of women’s votes and 48 percent of men’s votes. In 2012, Obama won 55 percent of women’s votes and 45 percent of men’s votes, compared to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who won 44 percent of women’s votes and 52 percent of men’s votes.

The 2016 presidential election was historic in that a woman, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a major party’s nominee. She ran against Republican Donald J. Trump. Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. She won the female vote by 12 points, but lost the male vote by 12 points, resulting in a historic 24 point gender gap. Trump, who won the Electoral College and the office, won the male vote by 12 points. Even though white women generally support Republican candidates over Democratic candidates, in 2016 Clinton won white women’s votes by six points.

The gender gap also appears in senatorial races. For example, in California Democratic candidate Barbara Boxer’s 1992 race for the U.S. Senate, 57 percent of the women voted for her and 43 percent for her Republican opponent, whereas 43 percent of the women voted for Boxer and 51 percent of men voted for her opponent, Bruce Herschensohn. Women’s votes provided the winning margin in dozens of Democratic candidates’ congressional and senatorial races in the 1980s and 1990s. The pattern holds even when the Republican candidate is a woman. In Maine’s 1996 Senate race, Republican Susan Collins won with 43 percent of women’s votes and 56 percent of men’s votes. Her Democratic opponent, Joseph E. Brennan lost with 48 percent of women’s votes and 39 percent of men’s votes.

In the 2000 U.S. Senate races, women provided the margins of victory for the three women who won, all Democrats. In Hillary Rodham’s New York Senate race, men voted equally for her and her opponent, but women gave her 60 percent of their votes and only 39 percent for her opponent. Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow won 54 percent of women’s votes and her opponent won 54 percent of men’s votes. Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell’s race had the same voting distribution as Stabenow’s.

In 2010, the gender gap in United States Senate races ranged from one percent (in Louisiana) to 17 percent (in Oregon).

In the seven 2012 gubernatorial races, women preferred Democrats in six. The highest margin, 11 points, came in New Hampshire, where Maggie Hassan, the only woman candidate, won. In North Carolina, women voters favored Republican Pat McCrory by four points.

In the 2018 congressional elections, women voters propelled enough Democratic candidates to victory that they took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. In that election, 59 percent of women voted for Democrats.

See also: Democratic Party, Women in the; Republican Party, Women in the

References: Center for the American Woman and Politics, Eagleton Institute, Rutgers University; “The 2018 Gender Gap was Huge,” fivethirtyeight.com (accessed March 24, 2019); The Washington Post, November 9, 2016.

Citation Types

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Format
MLA 9th
"Gender Gap." From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, edited by Suzanne O’Dea, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0376.
APA 7th
Gender Gap. From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, In S. O’Dea (Ed.), Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0376.
CMOS 17th
"Gender Gap." From Suffrage to the Senate America's Political Women: An Encyclopedia of Leaders, Causes & Issues, Edited by Suzanne O’Dea. Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Suffrage3e_0376.