The Racial Gap in Voting Among Women: White Women, Racial Resentment, and Support for Trump

Abstract

In this article, the question I answer is why did so many white women vote for Donald Trump? I reexamine the gender gap in voting to answer this question and to better understand the 2016 election results. The gender gap in voting and party identification is a real political phenomenon; the question remains to determine what kind of phenomenon it is. I advance the discussion by examining the racial component of the gender gap, show that there is a racial gap in the voting gender gap, and examine the sources of support for Donald Trump and other Republican candidates among white women using 2016 American National Election Studies Pilot Study data. I find that support for Republican candidates including most especially Donald Trump was surprisingly strong in 2016 among white women, and the source of that support showed to have a strong racial component.

Acknowledgement

I thank Sandy Schram, and the reviewers and editors of this journal for helpful comments. All errors, of course, remain my own.

Notes

¹ CNN Politics. Exit Polls. Election 2016, available online at: http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls.

² Susan Carroll, “Women’s Autonomy and the Gender Gap: 1980 and 1982,” in Carol M. Mueller (ed.), The Politics of the Gender Gap: The Social Construction of Political Influence (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1988, pp. 236–257); Carole K. Chaney, R. Michael Alvarez, and Jonathan Nagler, “Explaining the Gender Gap in the U.S. Presidential Elections, 1980–1992,” Political Research Quarterly 51:2 (1998), pp. 311–340; Cal Clark and Janet Clark, “The Gender Gap in 1996: More Meaning Than a ‘Revenge of the Soccer Moms,’” in Louis Duke Whitaker (ed.), Women in Politics: Outsiders or Insiders? 3rd edn (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999, pp. 66–84); Pamela Johnston Conover, “Feminists and the Gender Gap,” Journal of Politics 50:4 (1988), pp. 985–1010; Karen M. Kaufmann and John R. Petrocik, “The Changing Politics of American Men: Understanding the Sources of the Gender Gap,” American Journal of Political Science 43:3 (1999), pp. 864–887; Carol M. Mueller, “The Empowerment of Women: Polling and the Women’s Voting Bloc,” in Carol M. Mueller (ed.), The Politics of the Gender Gap (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1988), pp. 16–36; Mark Schlesinger and Caroline Heldman, “Gender Gap or Gender Gaps? New Perspectives on Support for Government Action and Policies,” Journal of Politics 63:1 (2001), pp. 59–92.

³ Jane Junn, “Hiding in Plain Site: White Women Vote Republican,” Politics of Color, (November 13, 2016), available online at: http://politicsofcolor.com/white-women-vote-republican/.

⁴ Gary Segura and Matt Barreto point out many of the shortcomings of exit poll data and political scientists prefer the higher quality data collected through the American National Elections Studies. Gary Segura and Matt Barreto, “Lies, Damn Lies, and Exit Polls …” The Huffington Post, (November 11, 2016), available online at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/latino-decisions/lies-damn-lies-and-exit-p_b_12903492.html.

⁵ Lynn Vavreck, The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

⁶ US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Income Grew Predominantly for the Higher Income Quintiles,” (March 14, 2017), available online at: https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2014/high-income-spending-economic-recovery/home.htm.

⁷ Pew Research Center, “America’s Shrinking Middle Class: A Close Look at Changes Within Metropolitan Areas,” (May 11, 2016), available online at: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/11/americas-shrinking-middle-class-a-close-look-at-changes-within-metropolitan-areas/.

⁸ US Department of Education. 2016, “Employment and Unemployment Rates by Educational Attainment,” (March 14, 2017), available online at: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cbc.asp.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ CNN Politics. Exit Polls. Election 2016, available online at: http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls.

¹¹ See Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Mary Stegmaier, “Economic Determinants of Electoral Outcomes,” Annual Review of Political Science 3 (2000), pp.183–219 for a review of the voluminous economic voting literature.

¹² David O. Sears, “Symbolic Politics: A Socio-Psychological Theory,” in S. Iyengar and W. J. McGuire (eds), Explorations in Political Psychology (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 113–149.

¹³ David O. Sears, Colette Van Laar, Mary Carillo, and Rick Kosterman, “Is it Really Racism? The Origins of White Americans’ Opposition to Race-Targeted Policies,” Public Opinion Quarterly 61 (1997), pp. 16–53.

¹⁴ Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Charles Tien, and Richard Nadeau, “Obama’s Missed Landslide: A Racial Cost?” PS: Political Science and Politics 43 (2010), pp. 69–76.

¹⁵ Michael Tesler, Post-Racial or Most-Racial? Politics and Race in the Obama Era (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2016).

¹⁶ Bernard L. Fraga, Sean McElwee, Jesse Rhodes and Brian Schaffner, “Why did Trump win? More whites—and fewer blacks—actually voted,” The Washington Post, (May 8, 2017), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/08/why-did-trump-win-more-whites-and-fewer-blacks-than-normal-actually-voted/?utm_term=.e72bf4e766cf.

¹⁷ Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 1991).

¹⁸ Sarah F. Anzia and Christopher R. Berry, “The Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect: Why Do Congresswomen Outperform Congressmen?” American Journal of Political Science 55 (2011): 478–493; Barbara C. Burrell, A Woman’s Place is in the House (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1994); Richard L. Fox, Gender Dynamics in Congressional Elections (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997); Craig Volden, Alan E. Wiseman, and Dana E. Wittmer, “When are Women More Effective Lawmakers Than Men?” American Journal of Political Science 57 (2013): pp. 326–341.

¹⁹ Kathleen Dolan, “The Impact of Candidate Sex on Evaluations of Candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives,” Social Science Quarterly 85 (2004), pp. 206–217.

²⁰ Georgia Duerst-Lahti, “The Bottleneck, Women as Candidates,” in Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox (eds), Women and Elective Office (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 15–25; Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox, It takes a Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

²¹ Anzia and Berry, “The Jackie (and Jill) Robinson Effect,” p. 480.

²² RealClearPolitics, “Obama on Hillary: No One More Qualified, Not Me, Not Bill, For Presidency,” (July 27, 2016), available online at: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/07/27/obama_speaks_at_dnc_hillary_clinton_more_qualified_than_i_was_for_the_presidency.html.

²³ Michael Tesler, Post-Racial or Most-Racial? Politics and Race in the Obama Era (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2016).

²⁴ Tesler, Post-Racial or Most-Racial?

²⁵ Ibid.