The Trump-Harris Gender Gap
Exit polls from the 2024 U.S. presidential election suggest a 10 percentage point gender gap in votes for Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. While a majority of female U.S. voters picked Harris, a majority of male voters went with Trump, who is the projected winner of the contest as of late Tuesday night.
A small majority of white women picked Trump over Harris, which was counteracted by fewer votes from Hispanic and Black females for Trump, so that in the end, the exit polls estimate that only 44 percent of U.S. women overall are in support of their new president. Support among Black women voters was lowest at just 7 percent voting for Trump, according to exit polls. While projected support among Hispanic women stood at 37 percent, this was a significant 7 percentage points up from exit polls in 2020. At 36.2 million, Latinos make up around 15 percent of eligible U.S. voters and are a fast-growing demographic.
Exit polls also showed, however, that despite diversity growing in the U.S. population, voter turnout from Black and Hispanic Americans lagged. Edison estimates that 71 percent of voters nationwide were white in 2024, four percentage points more than in 2020. Meanwhile the share of Black and Hispanic voters sank by 1-2 percentage points to 11 percent and 12 percent, respectively. While white women are projected to have turned out in higher numbers (and with fewer votes for Trump than last time), white male turnout is expected to have sunken slightly.