Woman is the future of man, sang Jean Ferrat. On November 5, will American women write a new page for the United States by bringing the first female president into the White House? At a time when experts are struggling over the interpretation of polls in pivotal states, where the business community is giving the advantage to Donald Trump, where the big stars of showbiz are marching in favor of Kamala Harris, there is a first lesson to be learned from this extraordinary electoral campaign: never has the war of the sexes been so harsh, and perhaps so decisive.
Because the famous “gender gap” has turned into an abyss, and this time, women could make the difference. Their mobilization is not new: in 2020, there were 82.2 million female voters compared to 72.2 million male voters. Likewise, reading past polls shows that they support Democratic candidates more than Republican ones. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received 54% of their votes, and Joe Bien 55% in 2020.
Donald Trump’s open sexism
The novelty, in 2024, could come from the amplification of this female vote, motivated by countless factors including the displayed sexism of Donald Trump and increased awareness of women’s rights since the emergence of the #MeToo movement. Above all, this will be the first presidential election since the decision in 2022 by the Supreme Court to overturn the Roe vs. Wade ruling, opening the way to a challenge to the right to abortion. So many alerts which justify the massive support of women in favor of Kamala Harris, with a score of 53% according to USA Today/Suffolk University against 36% for Donald Trump…
On the men’s side, it is the opposite: Donald Trump would receive 53% of the male votes, compared to only 37% for the Democratic candidate. Never has the gap been so significant, proof of the deep divisions in society, with, for some, the fear of losing rights acquired over more than half a century and the conviction that we must continue the fight , and, among a significant portion of the male electorate, the feeling that efforts to promote gender equality have gone too far.
This gap is even more palpable among younger generations. Riding this wave, Kamala Harris continued during the campaign to highlight icons of feminism, from Michelle Obama to the queen of pop Beyoncé via the singer Lizzo. And to perfect this image, the vice-president invited herself to the microphone of Alex Cooper, famous for his podcast Call Her Daddy, to denounce “Trump’s abortion bans”. Conversely, Donald Trump spends three hours on the microphone of the podcast The Joe Rogan Experience to talk about life on Mars or MMA to a largely male audience. Before making his big show at Madison Square Garden in New York, where he appeared alongside Elon Musk, Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., and even wrestler Hulk Hogan, repeating: “Kamala, you’re fired , go away!” Voters – but also male voters – could be tempted to give him his due.