This article was originally published by The Emancipator.
As the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservatives prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the federal right to abortion, thousands of White women stood shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with women of color and their allies — many of them waving signs and chanting both at the black metal gates of the White House and the Supreme Court’s ivory steps.
For a moment, it seemed as if female voters had a seminal moment of solidarity.
The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in the summer of 2022, as well as the Democrats’ midterm success, is a major reason why many hope (or even expect) that abortion access and reproductive freedoms will galvanize White women across political parties and help elect Vice President Kamala Harris — a presidential candidate who has made these issues a major part of her campaign platform.
Seven decades of exit polling, research, and data analysis by a myriad of political scientists consistently points to one conclusion: White women, by and large, tend to vote Republican. Since 1952, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton, the majority of White women have cast ballots for Republican presidential candidates.
Given historical voting trends, the most important question isn’t, “Why do White women vote for Republicans?” The question is why anyone expects them to vote differently. How should we expect political allegiances to manifest in electoral outcomes?
“The expectation that women are monolithic in their voting begins the misinterpretation, and then this idea, that gender affinity is important in voting — which it isn’t,” said Kelly Dittmar, an associate professor of political science at Rutgers University and the director of research at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. “Democrats vote for Democrats, and Republicans vote for Republicans.”
“Partisanship matters more than gender solidarity”
According to Pew Research Center, 57% of adults disapproved of the high court’s ultimate decision to reverse Roe v. Wade — including 47% of women. Women’s collective grief and rage impacted the 2022 midterms. Though Republicans narrowly took control of the House of Representatives, they fell far short of analyst and media predictions — and the Democrats picked up a seat in the Senate.
However, those were midterms. Presidential elections have proven to be different.
During the 2016 elections, 53% of White women voted for Trump, and during the 2020 elections, 53% of White women once again cast ballots for him.
“We’ve been dealing with this since 2016 when there was this shock that White women voted for Trump,” Dittmar said. “But we knew that the gender gap was pushed by women of color … Black women and Latinas increasingly becoming more engaged politically and active.”
While some may see data such as 60% of White women supporting abortion access and think that since this type of issue more commonly aligns with the Democratic plank, this will result in a difference in how White women cast votes at the top of the ticket. That isn’t necessarily the case.
“Partisanship matters more than gender solidarity,” said Andra Gillespie, a professor of political science at Emory University and author whose work explores the nexus of race and politics. “If [Democrats are] relying on White women to vote for Democrats, they will lose the elections.”
In political trends, past is often prologue
When Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with radio host Charlamagne Tha God earlier this month, he zeroed in on a question borne from the frustration he and some Black men have felt about the hyperfocus on whether they will support Harris — including former President Barack Obama’s chiding on the topic.
“When are Liz Cheney and Hillary Clinton going to wave the finger at White women?” He went on to add, “Fifty-two percent of White women voted for Trump in 2016, 55% voted for Trump in 2020.
“They all voted against their own interests!” Charlamagne Tha God exclaimed in exasperation. “When is their finger waving gonna start at them?”
“I do have the support of over 200 Republicans who worked for various administrations, including everyone going back to Ronald Reagan to the Bushes, to John McCain and Mitt Romney, and including Liz Cheney. I’m very proud to have her support,” Harris said in response. “And I believe that many of them who may have voted for Trump before are supporting me because, as they know, the stakes are so high in terms of our very democracy and rule of law.”
Unlike Trump who routinely directly talks about racial voting blocs by name, Gillespie says that Harris “is trying to present herself as transcendent as she can be,” adding that “there is the risk of alienating Black voters” if the vice president specifically mentioned White women by that category and is direct in appeals to them.
Winning a presidential election requires a delicate balance.
In the 2020 elections, large majorities of Black and Hispanic/Latino men and women voted for President Joe Biden, according to the Pew Research Center. (The research did not disaggregate for male and female Asian voters.)
Women make up the largest group of registered voters and have high turnout rates — and White women are a significant share of female voters.
Since numerous polls show Harris and Trump in a statistical dead heat, both campaigns are working to shore up support with this group. Trump’s mission appears to be simply holding the historical ground with White women.
The charge for Harris is to sway a statistically relevant number of working-class White women in swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This incremental move could give her a key advantage. She’ll need to do likewise with the so-called “suburban moms” — women in middle-class enclaves ringing urban centers in critical battlegrounds.
In their recent stops on the campaign trail together in an effort to appeal, in part, to White Republican women in suburbs in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney urged a gathering in Royal Oak, Michigan, that “It’s not about party, it’s about right and wrong.”
Broader efforts are also clearly underway.
Picking up the baton from Black women and other groups who held successful mass rallying calls, liberal-leaning White women backing Harris “broke Zoom” when more than 164,000 of them logged on in July to discuss pushing past unearned generational privilege, leveraging their political power and encouraging their sisters to vote. The group of White women raised more than $8.5 million for Harris.
The polls have also shown some movement.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this month, Harris’ narrow three-point lead over Trump has been fueled, in part, by a bump in support among White women.
In 2020, White women favored Trump over Biden by 12 points. In 2024, with Harris in the race, that lead has shrunk to just a three percentage point lead, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Still, political experts in the intersection of race, gender, and politics say that the past is likely prologue when it comes to what happens when the majority of White women step into the voting booth.
“We need to be careful about what we presume other people’s ‘best interests’ are,” Gillespie said. “Other people might be seeing their interests differently. There might be other parts of their identity that get weighted differently.”
