Women Will Win the Election!

November 4, 2024

To: Interested Parties
Fr: Jessica Mackler, EMILYs List 
Re: Women will win this electionAs we head into the final hours of the election, Kamala Harris and Democratic candidates across the country are reaching out to all kinds of voters, presenting a vision of the future in which Americans’ freedoms are protected and women get to make their own choices about their bodies. While the counterintuitive storylines may get the most attention, polls, early vote reports, and voter registration show a clear trend: Women will be the driving force behind Democratic wins this year as they have every year since 2016. Across race, education level, marital status, and age, women are more Democratic than their male counterparts. 

In the devastatingDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito noted, “Women are not without electoral and political power.” On November 5, we believe American women will prove what that political power can do. Read below for a sampling of the latest data:

Women make up most of early vote

  • Across battlegrounds, there is a 10-point gender gap in early voting so far: Women account for roughly 55 percent of the early vote, while men are around 45 percent, according to a POLITICO analysis of early vote data in several key states.
  • This trend has shown up in individual states as well: Early voting data shows women outpacing men at the polls across the battleground in North Carolina, Michigan by 10, Georgia and Pennsylvania by 12, as well as Wisconsin and Ohio.

Current polling shows an historic gender gap: more than 30 points in the most recent NYT/Siena Polling. 

  • Suburban Women: In an ABC News poll, Harris had a roughly 9-point lead among suburban women likely voters in the September poll but grew that to 19 in the latest poll. These are the women Trump and the Republicans are targeting with their fear mongering racist ads. 
  • Young Women: A recent NBC News poll showed that among young voters who say they will vote in the presidential election in November, Harris leads 56%-36%, a 20-point advantage. Young women said they will vote for Harris over Trump by a 33-point margin. 
  • Independent Women: In the end of cycle Des Moines Register Iowa poll, Vice President Harris had taken a lead driven largely by the support of Independent women, who supported Harris by 28 points. 
  • Women over 50: An October AARP poll showed that women over 50 moved in Harris’ favor more than any other demographic group – a significant fact since 97 percent of the polled group, representing 63 million women voters, say they are going to vote. In the DMR Iowa poll, women over 65 supported Harris by a 2-1 margin (63-28). 
  • Black women: Black women have been the most Democratic voting bloc against Trump and this year is no different. In the New York Times’ October survey, nearly 90% of Black women are planning to vote for Harris.
  • AAPI Women: According to a report from AAPI Data, Kamala Harris has the support of 72 percent of AAPI women, compared to 59 percent of AAPI men. This is particularly significant since AAPI voters in GA have already surpassed their 2020 early vote (and their 2016 early and Election day vote) totals. 

Women are particularly motivated by abortion.

  • EMILYs List polling has been consistent: In every election since Dobbs, abortion is the top persuasionand motivation message. We see the impact of Trump’s abortion bans every day. It is no wonder that the top voting issue across age, race, urbanicity, and income for women is abortion. It’s the most convincing reason to vote for Harris for every cohort of women voters because women understand the life or death stakes of the election.
    • This is true in northern battlegrounds; this is true in sun belt battlegrounds. It’s even true in blue states, where in 2022, we saw some evidence that voters didn’t necessarily believe a national ban would impact them; now they know that. 
    • It’s not just that voters choose abortion over inflation or crime or immigration when they have the chance – they believe that Republicans will ban abortion, they believe that Democrats will protect it, and they recall it later at higher levels than the other issues.

From Dobbs to Harris taking over the ticket, women have registered in big amounts

  • Women have answered the call in key moments in recent years. After the Dobbs decision, an August 2022 Target Smart analysis showed  states that were facing bans and votes on referenda saw increases in voter registration from women. The most striking example was Kansas, the first state to put abortion on the ballot after Dobbs.  Seventy percent of all new Kansas registrants at the time were women.   
  • In Target Smart’s analysis, since Harris became the nominee, women have out-registered men by 4 points, which is a 5-point margin swing over the same period in 2020 when men were out-registering women. In addition, the share of new voter registrations for Black women is 3 points higher than the same period in 2020.
    • This is true in the states as well: In North Carolina, the women lead men in new registrations by 7 points, a 6-point increase over the same period in 2020. In Georgia, the gender gap among new registrants is +9% women, nine points higher than the same time in 2020. 
    • The increase was also impressive among women of color. Target Smart also found that Latinas under 30 have increased registration across battleground states like GA (180 percent) and NC (210 percent). North Carolina’s share of new registrations coming from Black women overall are up 3 points, and 6 points among young Black women compared to the same period in 2020. In Georgia, The share of new registrations from Black women increased by 4 points compared to 2020, and the share of new registrations from young Black women increased by 3 points. 

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EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, works to elect Democratic pro-choice women up and down the ballot and across the country with a goal of fighting for our rights and our communities. Our work is centered around a fundamental vision: Run. Win. Change the World. EMILYs List has raised $850 million in service to that vision and has helped Democratic women win competitive elections by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running one of the largest independent expenditure operations for Democrats, and turning out women voters to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country’s first woman as vice president, 175 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 20 governors, and over 1,500 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. Visit www.emilyslist.org for more information.