Republicans are amused about the reports that Democrats have discussed a $20 million campaign among men called “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan.” An MSNBC commentator said “Democratic donors treating men like an endangered species on a remote island they need to study probably won’t rebuild trust.”
In the 2024 election, Democrats lost men by 12 at the presidential level and 14 at the House level. Among men 18-29, the margins were closer (Trump +1 at presidential level, +3D at the House level) but with much smaller margins compared to women 18-29 who voted for Harris by 23 and Congressional Democrats by 24 points. Looking at historical vote trends, men appear to be slipping further away from Democrats as the margins have widened since 2020. Over the past decade, Democrats had their best performance among men in 2018 with the margin of only +4R compared to the double digit margins in the last election.
Beyond their worries about male voters, Democrats should pay attention to what is happening among women. Kamala Harris won women only by 8 points in 2024. Her margin among women was significantly smaller than Biden’s 2020 margin among women (15) and Hillary Clinton’s in 2016 (13).
This trend should be particularly alarming to Democrats considering two factors: 2024 saw Democrats with their first black female presidential nominee, and it was the first post-Dobbs presidential election that put abortion at the forefront of campaign issues. From our post election survey, the top two messages voters heard from Democrats were abortion and democracy. Yet even with abortion as one of their top two campaign messages, Democrats’ margins among women at both the presidential (8) and Congressional levels (6) were smaller than that of Hillary Clinton (13) or Biden (15).
This wasn’t only a 2024 phenomenon. As shown in the above chart, the margins among both men and women in 2024 were similar to the margins in 2022 — the election that Democrats claim success in stopping a Red Wave. Democrats asserted that abortion was the reason why they “did so well” in 2022 yet the same margins applied in 2024 in the year of a historic Democratic defeat.
Democrats assumed that the abortion issue is a fail-proof strategy with female voters, but 2024 proved that assumption to be wrong. The red flag that should have emerged in 2022 was missed, until 2024 made it obvious. Democrats still retain a significant lead among women, but the last two elections have seen leads in single digits as opposed to double digits from 2020 and prior.
This is not to say that Democrats shouldn’t try to improve among men. There are many groups for which Democrats have to rethink their appeal. But these numbers indicate that Democrats can no longer take women for granted.
For more from the 2022 and 2024 elections click here (2022) and here (2024).
