Women voters are set to play a pivotal role in November’s general election as both parties court the key demographic and as reproductive rights emerge as a major motivating issue on both sides of the aisle.
Millions more women than men have registered to vote in recent cycles, and they’ve bested men in turnout numbers in every presidential election since 1964.
However, women voters are not a monolith and can differ in terms of how they vote and their top issues, according to polling.
Here’s where women voters stand as 2024 heats up:
Women voters of color
Black women are seen by many as the backbone of the Democratic Party, notably helping President Biden and the party flip Georgia from red to blue in 2020.
“We saw Black women in the last couple of cycles really push the Democratic Party to recognize their value as voters,” said Kelly Dittmar, a Rutgers University political scientist and scholar at the school’s Center for American Women and Politics, adding that some of that pressure led to Kamala Harris as Biden’s 2020 vice presidential pick.
This cycle, Black women say cost and inflation are among their top issues. According to a poll conducted by HIT Strategies on behalf of Higher Heights Leadership Fund, a national organization dedicated to advancing Black women’s political power, 71 percent of Black women said they were “very worried” about the cost of living, while 65 percent said they were “very worried” about affordable housing.
Black women also expressed concern over the future of reproductive rights, according to the poll. More than 40 percent of Black women said they are more likely to support a candidate who is “pro-reproductive freedom.”
“The economy by far was their biggest concern. People are just trying to make sure they can go to the grocery store, put gas in their tank, pay their rent and their mortgage,” said April Turner, vice president of communications at Higher Heights.
“We also saw that abortion rights is very, very important to them and something that we think is definitely going to galvanize Black women as they go to the polls this year,” she continued. “The rollback of these rights is a concern to them.”
Gallup polling from February found Democrats’ lead in Black Americans’ party preferences has fallen nearly 20 points in the past three years, and their lead among Hispanic adults is at its lowest point since 2011.
Experts say there isn’t evidence of a mass exodus of voters of color from the party; around 7 in 10 Latina women in 2020 voted for Biden over Trump, compared to roughly 6 in 10 Latino men who did the same, according to a survey roundup from CAWP research.
But the polls do indicate a need for both parties to up their efforts to engage with Hispanic voters — particularly women, who were also more likely than Hispanic men to turn out in 2020.
“Latina and Asian women, who are increasingly a larger and larger proportion of the electorate, [there’s] not as much consistency as there is in the Black women’s community and their political beliefs and view because there’s so much diversity of where they’re coming from right, where their origins are from, where they live in the United States,” Dittmar said.
Cuban Americans, for example, have a “very different” political orientation compared to Mexican Americans, Dittmar noted.
According to a survey from UnidosUS released late last year, 54 percent of Latino voters said inflation and the coast of living were their top issues, followed by the economy at 44 percent and health care at 33 percent. The same poll also found widespread support for abortion rights among Latinos, with 71 percent saying they are against efforts to restrict the procedure.
“As with recent elections, we’re seeing that Latina voters are motivated by calls for a fair and prosperous economy, a common-sense approach to immigration that includes a pathway to citizenship for their friends and family members in this country, and by concern about climate change,” said María Teresa Kumar, Voto Latino founding president and CEO.
“But this election is notable because we have seen Latinas especially energized by the fight for women’s right to have a say over their own bodies. In the wake of Roe’s reversal, we saw this issue rank among the top priorities, and now with the increasingly clear trajectory on other reproductive rights, including birth control and IVF, we are seeing this becoming more of a motivating force than ever.”
Gen Z women voters
Women have long been more likely than men to identify as Democrats, but the ideological gender divide has become particularly stark between young men and women.
A survey conducted by Change Research last year found nearly two-thirds of women aged 18-34 identified as progressive or liberal — while just more than a third of young men identified the same way.
“It’s not that young men are taking, I think, a very direct, sharp, sharp right turn. I think what’s happening with young men is that they’re beginning to look a lot like older men in American society,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the nonpartisan research firm PRRI and the author of a forthcoming book on Generation Z women in American politics.
At the same time, young women “have become notably more progressive and liberal than older women.”
Deckman said her research routinely finds that young women are more likely than other groups to say they’ll “only vote for a candidate who supports their position on abortion.”
They’re also more likely than any other group to identify as members of the LGBTQ community and will look for candidates who back LGBTQ rights.
“For Gen-Z women, their identities are really important to their thoughts and attitudes about politics and their voting priorities,” Deckman said.
Data from CAWP showed around 54 percent of young women aged 18-24 and 66 percent of women aged 25-44 turned out to vote in the 2020 presidential election — compared to 49 percent and 60 percent of men, respectively, in those same age brackets.
However, members of Gen Z in general are increasingly moving away from party labels and voicing their distrust in political institutions. Turner noted that this can be seen among younger Black women.
“Our polling shows Black women voters age 18 to 49 are definitely less trusting of institutions in general and are less likely to feel like they have political power and they’re less likely to trust the party system,” Turner said.
Suburban women voters
Suburban women voters have been viewed as one of the most critical voting blocs since at least 2018, when the group helped Democrats push back against Trump and Republicans during the midterms.
According to CBS News exit polling from 2018, 53 percent of suburban women voters said they voted for Democrats, up from 47 percent in 2014 and 51 percent in 2016. In 2020, Biden won 54 percent of suburban voters in general, according to the Pew Research Center.
“There’s this long history of trying to cut different slices of suburban women, and that’s where you get the people talking about soccer moms, the Walmart moms, the security moms. These are basically different types of suburban women,” said Michele Swers, a professor of American government at Georgetown University with a focus on Congress, women and politics.
With urban areas tending more Democratic and rural areas tending more Republican, the parties are left to fight for those in the suburbs.
“And women turn out to vote more than men, so suburban women are a particularly attractive group in that way,” Swers said.
Democrats have capitalized on abortion as a strategy to win over suburban women, as well as other voting groups, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“Democrats have won based on persuading suburban women in the past on abortion and that will be true again,” Williams said.
Former President Trump has clinched the delegates he needs for the GOP nomination, but the Republican has seen warning signs among suburban women — though he insisted at a recent campaign stop that “suburban housewives actually like Donald Trump.”
Trump has mocked and made vulgar remarks about women on the campaign trail and in office, with his comments prompting insult trackers during the previous election cycles.
Those slights, coupled with positions on issues like reproductive rights and gun control, could give Biden a leg up with snagging support from women.
“I think that Republicans have … underestimated the anger that women voters feel about gun violence in America,” said Martha McKenna, a Democratic strategist and veteran of EMILY’s List.
“Particularly for moms and grandmas, you just live with a lump in your throat about these acts of violence, gun violence, that are random and terrifying, and deadly, and everywhere. … That’s an issue that doesn’t get enough attention for suburban women.”
College vs. non-college-educated women voters
There’s another growing gender gap in college education: Young women older than 25 were more likely than men of the same age bracket to have a bachelor’s degree or more as their highest level of education, according to 2022 data from the U.S. Census.
“College educated voters are now very much trending towards the Democratic Party. There have been more women going to college for a while now and since the pandemic, you’re seeing that gap increase,” Swers said.
“So I do think that when you combine the gender gap as it exists and then college education … if you have more college educated females, probably you’re gonna see more Democratic voters amongst that group,” Swers said.
A Pew Research analysis found that Trump’s vote share among women without a college degree went up between the 2016 and 2020 elections, with white women who don’t have college education picking the Republican by a margin of 64 percent to 35 percent in 2020.
“These are the people that feel as though no one is fighting for them in Washington and whether it’s the economy, or immigration or foreign policy, they feel like they are unheard from, unrepresented in Washington and Donald Trump comes along and says I’m here to represent the voice of the voiceless and whether it’s true or not, that’s the way he made them feel,” said Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist.
