Almost every path to President Biden’s victory depends on strong support from women. But his current standing among women is the weakest lead a Democrat has had since 2004, a key factor in how close the race is.
According to an average of more than 30 polls conducted over the past six months and compiled by The New York Times, Mr. Biden’s lead among women has fallen to about eight percentage points since the 2020 election. That’s down from a lead among women of about 13 percentage points four years ago.
And since the 2020 election, former President Donald J. Trump’s support among men has recovered and is back to the double-digit lead seen in 2016.
In most presidential elections over the past few decades, Republicans have generally had the edge among men. But every year that Democrats have won the presidency, they have had a larger lead among women.
The decline in support for Mr. Biden is particularly pronounced among black and Hispanic women, according to a new series of surveys of women across the country and in Arizona and Michigan from KFF, a nonprofit that focuses on health research.
The polls show that while abortion and democracy are key issues for a small but significant share of women, inflation concerns continue to play a more central role in the race and benefit Mr. Trump.
However, in states where abortion is on the ballot, the KFF polls provide some evidence for Democrats’ theory that the issue will be a motivating factor in getting women to vote.
Mr. Biden’s support among women is still slightly more stable than among men, which has continued to decline, particularly among young men and men without college degrees. And Democratic strategists insist that traditionally Democratic constituencies, including women and black voters, will return to Mr. Biden’s side as the race progresses.
Still, Mr. Biden’s current problems with black and Hispanic women are particularly striking. He wins among black women by 58 percentage points in the KFF poll, but that represents a significant decline from his 86 percentage point lead among black women in the run-up to the 2020 election, according to an average of New York Times/Siena College polls this election. Mr. Biden’s lead among Hispanic women has also shrunk significantly, to about 12 points. The poll showed Mr Biden’s lead among women overall to be four points.
“Once the campaign gets going, abortion will mobilize women,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has studied women’s voting behavior for decades. “And as much as Trump wants to own the right size, he can’t stop himself from bragging about how he overturned Roe vs. Wade.”
In states like Arizona, where abortion is restricted and may be on the ballot in the fall, Democratic women were more motivated to vote than in states where abortion access was not threatened, the KFF polls found. There was no difference in motivation among Republican women.
In Michigan, which voted to uphold abortion rights in 2022, Mr. Biden is doing slightly worse among women compared to Arizona, noted Ashley Kirzinger, deputy director of polls at KFF.
“It’s not just that Biden is more popular in Arizona — he’s not,” Ms. Kirzinger said. “Michigan women are no longer worried about abortion access, and Biden is doing even worse in that scenario.”
Pro-abortion voters tend to be younger and whiter than women overall, the KFF polls found. They approve of Mr. Biden’s approach to abortion and would like to see him re-elected.
But the much larger group of women who say inflation is crucial to their vote could decide this election.
“Women don’t just think about single issues,” said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster, a former campaign manager for Mr. Trump and co-author with Ms. Lake of a book about women’s political desires. “That’s why they’re not individual voters.”
“Joe Biden and the Democrats only seem to appeal to women from the waist down, as abortion is the only issue on which Joe Biden has a lead in the polls,” Ms. Conway added.
Inflation voters overall are more likely to be black or Hispanic than women. They are more middle-aged. In Michigan, nearly 60 percent of black women say inflation is the most important issue in their vote. A similar proportion of Hispanic women in Arizona say the same thing. For these women, inflation blows away all other problems.
Overall, twice as many women say they were better off financially under Trump, the KFF surveys found. Young women, a key constituency that Democrats want to retain this cycle, were almost three times more likely to say they were better off financially under Mr. Trump than under Mr. Biden. Still, 41 percent of young women said there was no difference in their financial situation between the two candidates. Half of black women also said there was no difference.
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This trend toward democratic success among women is relatively modern. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and then George HW Bush won majorities among both men and women. But over the past 20 years, it has been rare for a Democrat to fall below a double-digit lead among women. The last Democrat to finish a campaign with a single-digit lead among women was John Kerry in 2004.
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2024-06-20 09:03:29
www.nytimes.com
