The role gender and race played in Donald Trump’s victory

Like many women, I have a terrible flashback. It is November 9, 2016, 6 a.m. – the day after the American presidential election that pitted Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump. I went to bed thinking Clinton had won.

On the night of that election, I remember thinking to myself that there was nothing to worry about. Americans would do the right thing and vote for the most qualified person, not the reality TV star. I entered the dining room where my partner was reading the news and looked at him hopefully as he told me, still shocked, “Trump won.”

Eight years ago I was wrong and today I was wrong about Vice President Kamala Harris’s chances of beating Trump.

I was hoping the polls were wrong and the race wasn’t as close as it seemed in the swing states. I believed that women would come out in droves to protect their reproductive rights. I hoped and assumed that white women in particular would vote for Harris en masse. That was a false hope.

Trump has been declared the winner after handily winning several swing states. , something he didn’t do in ’16. In fact, he’s done better across almost every demographic in .

Tight race

It was a hard-fought battle and according to the opinion polls .

In retrospect, a number of questions have been answered that were not so clear a day ago. Will America Vote for a Black Woman? No. Will Harris be able to do what Clinton couldn’t do eight years ago? No. Will she break the glass ceiling of the Oval Office? No.

The fact that these questions were still happening in 2024 seems revealing about the misogyny and racism America faces.

Gender played a major role in the election for several reasons. The overthrow of across the US, especially as the subsequent deaths of several women illustrated the consequences of these extreme anti-choice positions.

Concerns about women’s reproductive rights and Trump’s casual dismissal of sexual violence seemingly gave women, young and old, a reason to embrace.

A survey in Iowa conducted by famed pollster Ann Selzer found women age 65 and older, though Trump ultimately won the state.

TikTok videos showing the infamous Trumps among young TikTokers, who weren’t old enough to remember when the comments originally surfaced in 2016. They spoke of their amazement that their fathers and anyone with daughters, sisters or mothers could vote for such a person.

But it wasn’t enough, even though they cast their vote for Harris. , but not in the margins her campaign had hoped for.

Trump’s attraction to men

On the other side of the gender equation are men. as their apparent fear of being overtaken by women’s progress in equality was exploited.

This is a disturbing trend. According to a September NBC poll, . Research has shown that young women have become more liberal over time, perhaps because they are angry about falling behind and losing their previous advantages.

The candidates themselves recognized the differences in support in their choices for podcasts and media appearances. Trump spent three hours with Joe Rogan — who then endorsed him — for his podcast that Harris continued, a podcast aimed at women under 35.

Ultimately, the US voted for what has been called “a cultural valorization of stereotypical masculine traits,” and Trump’s endless and won the day.

The impact of white women

Another important factor in the campaign was race.

Exit polls suggested white women without a college education, while white, college-educated women cast their votes for Harris.

Before the election, their support for Trump now seemed unfounded. Exit polls show that Harris did not perform well with .

We don’t yet have the final numbers on how white women in swing states ultimately cast their votes, but they were probably not good. Democrats showed videos, one narrated by actress Julia Roberts, pointing out the obvious constitutional guarantee that — and that what happens at the ballot box should stay at the ballot box.

It was illuminating, suggesting that there are still plenty of men who think and it’s treason if they don’t – and perhaps Trump’s victory suggests their wives agreed.

The loss of reproductive freedom was apparently not enough for white women to go against their race, their class interests – or possibly their husbands.

Black, Latino men

The other racial factor in the campaign was the perception of declining support for Harris from black and Latino men. Trump too.

And according to a New York Times poll, while Obama was supported by 93 percent of black Americans in 2008 and Biden was supported by 90 percent in 2020.

Is this the result of sexism or internalized misogyny? Can’t black men bring themselves to vote for a black woman?

Barack Obama’s.

After the 2016 election, the American Psychological Association described concerns surrounding the election results as .

That stress has returned as the world looks to what will happen if Trump, with no guardrails, no checks and balances and with billionaires at his side, tries to reshape America in his own authoritarian image.

Republished with permission from The Conversation