Women Voters

As part of CAWP's Research Inventory on Gender & Politics, this overview focuses on current and past research, with particular emphasis on the latest findings, related to women voters. This overview captures the current state of knowledge to increase understanding of current political realities, support research-based interventions, and generate future research questions and agendas.

Women Voters with hub image

The vote occupies a unique position in American democracy, enabling “we the people” to select our elected officials and hold them accountable. But women were not originally enfranchised at the nation’s founding. Scholarship probes the degree to which women exercise self-governance and wield political influence through the vote. In candidacy and officeholding today, as well as funds contributed to political campaigns, men out-participate women. The vote is different because women’s voter turnout exceeds men’s. This voting power offers women an opportunity for collective leverage. But women are a large, diverse group, and the factors shaping their turnout and votes extend beyond gender. In short, the entity we label “women voters” is decidedly not a monolith.1

Voter Turnout

In presidential elections since 1980, women have been a majority of voters, surpassing men numerically as registered voters and turning out at higher rates than men.2 This reverse gender gap, in which men are underrepresented in politics compared with women, dispels the myth that women are inherently less political than men. To the extent that women and men voters support different candidates, these turnout differences can be consequential for election outcomes.3 The collective power that women wield through the vote means that politicians have incentives to take women’s perspectives into account in order to win election. Women’s greater likelihood of voting can usually be found across age and racial/ethnic groups.4 Christina Wolbrecht and J. Kevin Corder largely attribute the gains women made in turnout to women closing, and then reversing, the gender deficit in educational attainment.5

But gender is not the only category at work in understanding the composition of the electorate. Indeed, the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 did not successfully enfranchise all women. It would take civil rights struggles throughout the twentieth century that culminated in the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to successfully enfranchise women (and men) from historically underrepresented racial/ethnic and language groups. Intersectional approaches to the vote are needed to recognize the ways that both gender and race/ethnicity affect access to the franchise, turnout rates, and voters’ choices.6

In addition to historic struggles over the franchise, the legacy of race-based obstacles to immigration and citizenship shape women’s voting power and Latinas and Asian American women disproportionately. It was not until the 1960s that federal immigration policy towards non-European nations was brought into greater alignment with the treatment of European immigrants. Today, voter turnout remains higher for white women than women from historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.7 Research also finds that specific legislative districts and the competitiveness of elections impact the existence of a gender gap in voter turnout: in an analysis of the aggregate turnout gap from 2008 to 2018, Katelyn Stauffer and Bernard Fraga showed that women’s advantage in turnout can narrow or reverse in very competitive congressional elections.8 Moreover, the gender gap in turnout was larger in more racially diverse districts. 

At the individual voter level, the reasons for participating may vary by both race/ethnicity and gender. For example, using survey data, Christine Slaughter, Chaya Crowder, and Christina Greer found that civic duty is a better explanation for Black women’s decisions to vote compared with the decisions of Black men or white women.9 Moreover, the voter turnout of Black women is higher than one would expect given racial disparities in socioeconomic resources.10 Black women’s activism throughout U.S. history has often been driven by the cause of promoting the franchise via multiracial coalitions.11 Even in the face of recent political campaigns marked by overtly misogynist and racist campaign appeals, Black women have shown incredible resilience in their political participation and commitment to democratic principles.12

Turnout decisions can also be gendered due to the socialization effects of women role models: Christina Wolbrecht and David Campbell found that young women exposed to viable women candidates were more likely to vote than others years later.13 Their finding, specific to young women who were raised in nonpolitical households, did not extend to young men. They conclude: “When girls see women running for office, it will help lead them to a lifetime of political engagement.”14 Their book about role models demonstrates that the presence of women candidates matters particularly to young voters, increasing positive evaluations of women in politics; women role models were also associated with more positive views about democracy for young women.15

The characteristics of candidates can impact turnout, as can the issue environment. For example, in a study of two states, Alana Safarpour and colleagues found that the presence of women candidates in 2018 led to increased turnout for both women and men with a disproportionate effect on young voters.16 Issues matter as well: women concerned with abortion rights in 2020 were more likely to vote than others.17 The Kansas 2022 abortion referendum increased voter turnout in the primary election — particularly for women;18 the vote concerned a proposed constitutional amendment to allow for greater abortion restrictions — the first ballot question following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Struggles over voting rights continue. For example, the Supreme Court has been chipping away at the protections of the Voting Rights Act — the landmark legislation that had attracted bipartisan support for decades. The Trump administration’s moves to challenge birthright citizenship and threats to strip naturalized citizens of their rights have implications for who will have the right to vote in the future — including women immigrants and children of immigrants. Other proposed policies under debate today could disproportionately limit women’s access to the ballot because women often change their names upon marriage.19

Voting Choices

Around the same time that women were closing the gender gap in turnout with men, the overall patterns in women’s and men’s voting choices were widening and a gender gap emerged in presidential candidate preference.20 Public awareness of this “gender gap” in voting can potentially elevate issues important to women as a group, offering women more political influence.21 Such a strategy can create the false impression that women voters are monolithic, however. It can limit politicians’ and the media’s attention to women who are swing voters rather than enhancing attention to all women.22 Jane Junn and Natalie Masuoka note that the “gender gap” analytic focus casts men as the default group to which women voters are compared and in so doing, masks more consequential differences within the group “women voters.”23

In the 2024 presidential election, polls revealed that more women than men cast ballots for Vice President Kamala Harris.24 Despite criticism about Harris’s failure to mobilize more women voters, women’s support for Harris was on par with their support for other recent Democratic presidential candidates.25 As Catherine Wineinger notes, despite Harris’s attempts to woo white Republican women to defect from President Trump, women’s support for him in 2024 was consistent with prior Republican candidate support from white women voters.26

Junn and Masuoka contend that, rather than pitting voters’ gender identities against their racial/ethnic identities, “gender and race exist in a ‘both/and’ rather than an ‘either/or’ relationship for partisan vote choice.”27 The “both/and” idea captures the structural nature of both categories and the subsequent incentives facing subgroups of women as they decide which party to support.28 Indeed, in the 2024 presidential election, we observed large racial/ethnic differences in how subgroups of women voters cast their ballots.29 At the same time, the shift in Black men’s and Latino men’s support for Trump between 2020 and 2024 was widely noted, and represented a departure from the fact that the gender gap in vote choice has mainly been a white voter phenomenon.30 Black men primarily supported Harris in 2024, but at lower rates than Black women. 

Women are divided across a host of categories, creating political “disunity.”31 For example, Wolbrecht and Corder demonstrate that married women are more likely to vote Republican than unmarried women.32 And even the largest racial subgroup of women – white women voters – exhibit internal diversity. For example, Junn and Masuoka find that white women who support Republican candidates are notably different from those who support Democratic candidates on the dimensions of religiosity, region, and sexual orientation — findings that echo a study of the 2016 election by Dara Strolovitch, Janelle Wong, and Andrew Proctor.33 Among other findings, Strolovitch and her colleagues found that lesbian women were more supportive of Hillary Clinton for president than gay men, and that this gap occurred for both white and Black voters; thus they take an intersectional approach to the “sexuality gap” that favors Democratic candidates.34 Melissa Deckman’s study of Gen Z women reveals a preference for Democrats as well, particularly among those who identify as LGBTQ+.35

Meanwhile, research finds that the factors shaping voting decisions depend on women’s racial/ethnic identities.36 In the 2020 election for example, women who scored higher on a sexism scale were more supportive of Trump than other women, though the results depended on race/ethnicity; holding sexist beliefs was a significant predictor of voting for Trump among Latina and Asian American women but not Black or white women.37 How gender issues impact elections can vary by religious commitments that interact with race/ethnicity among other identities; for example, Erin Cassese found that while white Evangelical Republican women’s loyalty to Donald Trump did not waver in the face of sexist remarks, secular Republican women appeared more likely to consider cross pressures of party and gender.38 Together these studies illuminate the inequalities and hierarchies that work together to shape how women voters cast their ballots.

Age and generation also play a role in voting behavior as well as how candidates campaign and work to attract supporters.39 Trump’s concerted appeals to young men in 2024 were notable, as he courted a reverse “gender gap” with success.40 Today’s young women are more liberal and Democratic than young men.41 Young women were also more likely to vote in 2024 than young men, though there were differences by race/ethnicity.42

While voting behavior studies typically rely on respondents’ self-identification or interviewer classification of respondents as women or men, studies are increasingly adding a more complex approach that moves beyond analyzing gender as a dichotomous variable.43 Amanda Bittner and Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, for example, examined survey respondents’ self-placement on a continuum of femininity and masculinity that they call a “subjective measure of gender identification.”44 They concluded that this subjective measure interacted with the traditional dichotomous measure of gender to offer a more complete explanation of gender gaps in attitudes. 

In another critique of analyzing gender as a dichotomous variable in social science research, Monika McDermott contends that understanding gender in terms of personality traits rather than sex offers more analytic leverage to studying American politics.45 She found that voters’ alignment with stereotypically masculine traits increases the likelihood that they identify as and vote for Republicans, and voters with more stereotypically feminine traits are more likely to identify as and vote for Democrats. In addition, holding masculine traits boosts individuals’ political engagement, as measured by a scale combining frequency of political discussion, interest in the news, and knowledge about current politics.46

Voting choices in 2016 partially turned on beliefs about whether the United States as a country has grown “too soft and feminine.” In an analysis of voter behavior, Melissa Deckman and Erin Cassese found that men were more likely than women to agree with this assessment.47 Moreover, the authors find that these beliefs shaped support for Donald Trump. Meanwhile, self-perceptions of masculinity and femininity can interact with gender to support candidate choice. For example, Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle found that the gender gap in Trump support was largest between “hypermasculine men” and “hyperfeminine women.”48

Partisanship and Change

Undergirding voting decisions are longstanding partisan loyalties — typically measured with self-identification with the Democratic or Republican parties.49 Partisans almost exclusively support candidates from their party, often leaving close general election outcomes dependent on mobilization and the ballots of independent voters (who lack strong party attachments). As Heather Ondercin documents, the parties’ changing positions on civil rights and feminist issues and the greater likelihood of Democratic identification of women in Congress have contributed to the partisan gender gap.50

Through the second half of the twentieth century, women overall remained more loyal to the Democratic Party while men gradually shifted towards the Republican Party.51 As Susan J. Carroll argues, the social changes ushered in by the women’s movement in the 1960s helped created economic and psychological space for individual women to articulate political interests and preferences that were distinct from individual men’s.52 Women are more likely to be strong partisans than men today.53

Both race/ethnicity and gender shape partisan loyalties. For example, Black Americans are much more supportive of the Democratic Party than other racial/ethnic groups.54 But even within Black Americans, gender plays a role.55 For example, Slaughter, Crowder, and Greer found that Black women were more likely to identify as Democrats and more likely identify as “strong Democrats.”56 Similarly, Christina Bejarano found that Latinas are more liberal and more supportive of the Democratic Party than Latinos,57 and studies show that Asian American women are more likely to be Democrats than Asian American men.58

Research on Asian Americans and Latinas/os find that nonpartisanship is more likely to characterize those populations – including women – than white and Black Americans.59 To the degree that political scientists have argued that parental socialization shapes partisan attachments,60 that traditional model may not shed light on the attitudes of immigrant families.61 And because the major parties mobilize people who are the most likely to turn out to vote, the parties may not expend resources to incorporate immigrants if they are not already incorporated into the party system.62

Public Opinion: Gender Gaps, Identities, and Intersectionality

Researchers also study women’s subjective identities (beyond partisanship), values, and policy preferences. Public opinion “gender gap” studies seek to understand longstanding differences in the policy preferences of women and men. Experimental approaches to women’s attitudes reveal that identities including race/ethnicity can reduce support for gender-conscious policies such as those to address equal pay; in short, women’s support varies depending on which communities of women they perceive to be the policy beneficiaries.63 Meanwhile, gender gap studies that primarily rely on national survey datasets usually base their findings on white women survey respondents since white women usually constitute the vast majority of respondents. The “gender gap” in policy preferences does not always extend across Americans, depending on racial/ethnic background.64

According to Mary-Kate Lizotte, values differences between women and men are essential to understanding gender differences in policy preferences, with women more liberal.65 For example, studies have long shown that women are more hesitant to use force abroad than men, more supportive of social spending and social welfare issues, and more concerned about social inequality and disadvantage. Lizotte argues that women are more likely than men to subscribe to pro-social values (e.g., humanitarianism, egalitarianism, universalism, and benevolence). Part of this general tendency manifests in women’s greater support for a more activist government. Meanwhile, gender interacts with partisanship, with gender differences evident on policy preferences within both the Democratic and Republican parties.66 Parenthood can also shape people’s policy views with differences by gender.67

Researchers commonly analyze women by dividing them into two groups – “white women” and “women of color” – but women from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds may not self-identify as “women of color.” For example, Stacey Greene, Yalidy Matos, and Kira Sanbonmatsu found that although nearly all Black women self-identify as “women of color,” such is not the case for Latinas and Asian American women.68

Subjective identities also divide women voters.69 For example, scholars have measured and analyzed women’s self-identification as “feminists” as well as their sympathy for feminist policies and the women’s movement.70 Intersectional approaches illuminate the dynamic nature of identities as well as the ways in which women may self-identify with multiple identities simultaneously.71 For example, Black women have been found to be “doubly bound” to both Blacks and women as groups.72 Chaerim Kim and Jane Junn find that how women rate the identity most important to them varies by racial/ethnic background.73

Studies also examine how women voters perceive economic conditions. For example, Meghan Condon and Amber Wichowsky find that gender and race shape voters’ perspectives about the economy.74 Specifically, they identified an effect for Trump’s election in 2016 that altered the relationship between voting groups and economic assessments such that the views of women of color about the economy became more pessimistic and the views of men who were white and working class became more optimistic. Together, their results suggest that the same economic conditions can be understood differently due to beliefs about which groups are gaining (or losing) in political life. They note that “racialized and gendered experiences of the broad political climate can boost or suppress individuals’ self-concepts and perceptions of status, in turn shaping economic assessments.”75

Research that simultaneously considers gender alongside other categories is increasingly challenging what can be considered single-axis or single-category scholarship. For example, Chaya Crowder introduces a new concept called “intersectional solidarity” that she uses to explain public opinion and policy support.76 She concludes: 

"The data suggests that people who exhibit intersectional solidarity are more likely to support policies that affect marginalized groups in general, but this is especially true when it comes to issues that affect intersectionally marginalized groups. Existing broad, pro-social concepts like altruism, feminism, and racial sympathy are limited when it comes to explaining support for disadvantaged subgroups due to the purpose of their inquiry. Put another way, these existing theories and measures are intended to reflect consciousness as it relates to marginalized groups broadly defined, they do not take into account the intersectional nature of oppression."77

Women Candidates and Gender Affinity Effects

Women voters may seem like the natural supporters of women candidates. And researchers have found evidence of gender affinity effects in voting to some extent. Women voters tend to be more interested than men in seeing more women in politics.78 But for the reasons already outlined for why women voters are not monolithic – including partisan preferences, race/ethnicity, and other identity characteristics – women do not vote cohesively on behalf of women candidates. Sexism and gender stereotypes can impact vote choice and candidate evaluation79 as well as voters’ beliefs about electability.80 For more, see overview of Women Candidates and their Campaigns

A major reason that women do not always cast ballots for women candidates is political party. The party affiliation of women candidates trends Democratic (over Republican), and the supporters of women candidates tend to separate along party lines (with Republican women support for President Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris a good example). Interestingly, Carroll finds some evidence that gender gaps are larger when Democratic women run for statewide offices and smaller when Republican women run.81 For more, see overview of Voter Attitudes Toward Women in Politics

Party is not the only important consideration. Voters’ assessments of their ideal representatives can depend on their own characteristics and correspondence to candidates’ identities.82 For example, Tasha Philpot and Hanes Walton found that Black women are the strongest supporters of Black women candidates.83 Racially polarized voting patterns can create larger divides in voters by race/ethnicity than are typically found by gender. Indeed, to a large extent, partisan loyalties coincide with voters’ racial/ethnic identities.84 Whether the public supports “more” women in elected offices depend on the race/ethnicity of the women under consideration as well as the race/ethnicity of the voter.85

Research shows that believing more women are in politics has positive effects on external efficacy, political trust, and evaluations of institutional capacity.86 Stauffer highlights the importance of the public’s sense that women are collectively represented in government, finding positive impacts for both women and men. She also finds partisan differences to a degree, with some findings indicating that Republican men are less affected by beliefs about women’s representation than Republican women or Democrats. For more, see overview of Women in Elective Office

Political Knowledge

Education is often seen as a prerequisite to effective participation and protection of one’s interests in politics. As a result, a specific type of knowledge – “political knowledge” – can be analyzed to determine if citizens have the information they need to adequately pursue their interests.87 Typical measures include knowledge of government processes and the identity of elected officials. Researchers have probed gender gaps in political knowledge and found that women typically score lower than men on these measures. These inequalities may result from the historic exclusion of women from voting and running for office, as well as the underrepresentation of women in politics. The normative implications of this gap may be troubling as women may not be as well-positioned as men to pursue and protect their interests politically. Interestingly, Jennifer Wolak argues that men are more likely than women to enjoy argumentation and disagreement in general, leading to gender differences in political engagement.88

However, the conventional wisdom that women are less knowledgeable about politics has been questioned on multiple fronts. For example, the presence of women in politics can narrow or reverse the traditional gender gap in psychological engagement with politics, including knowledge.89 How political knowledge is conceptualized and measured, and whether issues of disproportionate interest to women are included, also affects whether any gender difference emerges.90

The “deficit” of women with respect to political knowledge may be an artificial result of how survey questions are asked. For example, women survey respondents seem to be more willing than men to respond “don’t know” to survey questions about political information.91 In his study of open-ended responses to knowledge items, Patrick Kraft found no gender differences in people’s “sophistication of their expressed political attitudes.”92 His concept of “discursive sophistication” is captured by the number of topics people discuss, the range of considerations brought to the issue discussed, and the interconnectedness of ideas. 

Researchers have also used experiments to understand how correcting the public’s information about women in politics may affect political behavior. Stauffer finds that correcting misperceptions about the presence of women in elective office can increase people’s political efficacy.93 She concludes that “providing individuals with information about women’s inclusion can play a powerful role in shifting political attitudes.”94

Suggested Citation: Dittmar, Kelly, Kira Sanbonmatsu, and Paru Shah. 2026. CAWP Research Inventory on Gender & Politics. Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.

Endnotes 

1 Cassese, Erin C., and Amanda Friesen. 2025. "A Look Back At 20 Years of Research on Gender and Voting in Politics & Gender." Politics & Gender 21 (1): 51–65.

2 Shames, Shauna L., Sara Morell, Ashley Jardina, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Nancy Burns. 2025. What's Happened to the Gender Gap in Political Activity?: Social Structure, Politics, and Participation in the United States. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; CAWP (Center for American Women and Politics). “Gender Differences in Voter Registration and Turnout.” https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-differences-voter-registration-and-turnout 

3 Carroll, Susan J. 2021. “Voting Choices: The Importance of Women Voters and the Gender Gap.” In Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics, 5th edition, eds. Susan J. Carroll, Richard L. Fox, and Kelly Dittmar, 139–69. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. 

4 Wolbrecht, Christina, and J. Kevin Corder. 2020. A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections since Suffrage, 1st edition. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; CAWP. “Gender Differences in Voter Registration and Turnout.” https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-differences-voter-registration-and-turnout

5 Wolbrecht and Corder 2020

6 Junn, Jane, and Natalie Masuoka. 2024. Women Voters: Race, Gender, and Dynamism in American Elections. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; Lien, Pei-te, Dianne M. Pinderhughes, Carol Hardy-Fanta, and Christine M. Sierra. 2007. "The Voting Rights Act and the Election of Nonwhite Officials." PS: Political Science & Politics 40 (3): 489–94; Smooth, Wendy. 2021. “Elevating African American Women's Political Leadership Amid Pandemic Politics.” In Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics, 5th edition, eds. Susan J. Carroll, Richard L. Fox, and Kelly Dittmar, 192–222. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. 

7 CAWP. “Gender Differences in Voter Registration and Turnout.” https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-differences-voter-registration-and-turnout 

8 Stauffer, Katelyn E., and Bernard L. Fraga. 2022. "Contextualizing the Gender Gap in Voter Turnout." Politics, Groups, and Identities 10 (2): 334–41.

9 Slaughter, Christine, Chaya Crowder, and Christina Greer. 2024. "Black Women: Keepers of Democracy, the Democratic Process, and the Democratic Party." Politics & Gender 20 (1): 162–81.

10 Smooth 2021

11 Greer, Christina M. 2024. How to Build a Democracy: From Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams, 1st edition. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

12 Slaughter, Christine M. 2025. "Lessons Learned from Black Women's Resilience and the 2024 Election." Politics & Gender 21 (2): 361–8.

13 Wolbrecht, Christina, and David E. Campbell. 2026. "Nevertheless, Role Models Persisted: Girls Exposed to Women Politicians More Likely to Vote as Adults." Political Behavior 48: 253–72. 

14 Wolbrecht and Campbell 2026, 267

15 Campbell, David E., and Christina Wolbrecht. 2025. See Jane Run: How Women Politicians Matter for Young People. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.                                                                            

16 Safarpour, Alauna C., SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor, Stella M. Rouse, and Michele L. Swers. 2022. "When Women Run, Voters Will Follow (Sometimes): Examining the Mobilizing Effect of Female Candidates in the 2014 and 2018 Midterm Elections." Political Behavior 44 (1): 365–88.

17 Vansickle-Ward, Rachel, Adrian Pantoja, Morrey Liedke, and Dana Nothnagel. 2023. "Abortion, Attitudes and Appointments: How Gender and Reproductive Rights Shaped Views on Amy Coney Barrett and Voter Turnout in 2020." Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 44 (1): 40–55.

18 Amos, Brian, and Alexandra T. Middlewood. 2024. "All Eyes on Kansas: Voter Turnout and the 2022 Abortion Referendum." American Politics Research 52 (5): 534–45.

19 Matto, Elizabeth. 2025. "The SAVE Act Would Make It Harder to Vote — and Not Just for Noncitizens." The Hill, March 7. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5180409-save-act-disenfranchise-voters/

20 Wolbrecht and Corder 2020; CAWP (Center for American Women and Politics). "Gender Gaps in Vote Choice.” https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-gaps-vote-choice-and-party-identification?tab=VoteChoice  

21 Mueller, Carol. 1988. The Politics of the Gender Gap: The Social Construction of Political Influence. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

22 Carroll, Susan J. 2006. "Moms Who Swing, or Why the Promise of the Gender Gap Remains Unfulfilled." Politics & Gender 2 (3): 362–74.

23 Junn and Masuoka 2024

24 CAWP. "Gender Gaps in Vote Choice.” https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-gaps-vote-choice-and-party-identification?tab=VoteChoice  

25 CAWP (Center for American Women and Politics). 2024. “The Historic Gender Gap That Wasn’t.” https://cawp.rutgers.edu/news-media/press-releases/historic-gender-gap-wasnt

26 Wineinger, Catherine N. 2025. "Women Are Not a Voting Bloc: Why Democratic Appeals to White Republican Women Didn't Widen the Gender Gap." Politics & Gender 21 (2): 369–75.

27 Junn and Masuoka 2024, 4

28 Junn and Masuoka 2024

29 CAWP. "Gender Gaps in Vote Choice.” https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-gaps-vote-choice-and-party-identification?tab=VoteChoice  

30 Catalist. 2025. "What Happened 2024." https://catalist.us/whathappened2024/

31 Sears, David O., and Leonie Huddy. 1990. "On the Origins of Political Disunity Among Women." In Women, Politics, and Change, eds. Louise A. Tilly and Patricia Gurin, 249–77. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

32 Wolbrecht and Corder 2020

33 Junn and Masuoka 2024 

34 Strolovitch, Dara Z., Janelle S. Wong, and Andrew Proctor. 2017. "A Possessive Investment in White Heteropatriarchy? The 2016 Election and The Politics of Race, Gender, and Sexuality." Politics, Groups & Identities 5 (2): 353–63, 360.

35 Deckman, Melissa. 2024. The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy. New York, NY: Columbia University Press; Deckman, Melissa. 2025. "Gen Z and Politics: Masculinity, Femininity, and Beyond." In Masculinity in American Politics, ed. Monika L. McDermott and Dan Cassino. New York, NY: New York University Press.

36 Frasure-Yokley, Lorrie. 2018. "Choosing the Velvet Glove: Women Voters, Ambivalent Sexism, and Vote Choice in 2016." The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics 3 (1): 3–25. 

37 Kim, Chaerim, and Jane Junn. 2024. "Whitewashing Women Voters: Intersectionality and Partisan Vote Choice in the 2020 US Presidential Election." Politics & Gender 20 (3): 701–26.

38 Cassese, Erin C. 2020. "Straying from the Flock? A Look at How Americans’ Gender and Religious Identities Cross-Pressure Partisanship." Political Research Quarterly 73 (1): 169–83; Strolovitch et al. 2017

39 Deckman, Melissa, and Jared McDonald. 2023. "Uninspired by Old White Guys: The Mobilizing Factor of Younger, More Diverse Candidates for Gen Z Women." Politics & Gender 19 (1): 195–219; MacManus, Susan, and Amy Benner. 2022. "Voter Participation and Turnout: More Diverse Electorate, New Forms of Activism, Record Turnout." In Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics, eds. Susan J. Carroll, Richard L. Fox, and Kelly Dittmar, 105–38. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

40 Restuccia, Andrew, and Michelle Hackman. 2024. "Trump Pushes to Boost Turnout Among Young Men, Harris Focuses on Female Voters." Wall Street Journal, November 3. https://tinyurl.com/ynyvxy26

41 CIRCLE. 2025. "The Youth Vote in 2024." Tufts University. https://circle.tufts.edu/2024-election; Cohn, Nate. 2024. "The Evidence for a Big Youth Gender Gap and a Right Turn for Young Men." New York Times, October 18. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/18/upshot/polls-trump-harris-young-men.html; Deckman 2025

42 Medina, Alberto, and Katie Hilton. 2025. “New Data: Nearly Half of Youth Voted in 2024.” CIRCLE, Tufts University, April 14. https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/new-data-nearly-half-youth-voted-2024; CAWP. "Gender Gaps in Vote Choice.” https://cawp.rutgers.edu/data/voters/gender-gaps-vote-choice-and-party-identification?tab=VoteChoice  

43 Bittner, Amanda, and Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant. 2017. "Sex isn’t Gender: Reforming Concepts and Measurements in the Study of Public Opinion." Political Behavior 39 (4): 1019–41; Westbrook, Laurel, and Aliya Saperstein. 2015. "New Categories Are Not Enough: Rethinking the Measurement of Sex and Gender in Social Surveys." Gender & Society 29 (4): 534–60.

44 Bittner and Goodyear-Grant 2017, 1027

45 McDermott, Monika L. 2016. Masculinity, Femininity, and American Political Behavior, 1st edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

46 McDermott 2016

47 Deckman, Melissa, and Erin Cassese. 2021. "Gendered Nationalism and the 2016 US Presidential Election: How Party, Class, and Beliefs about Masculinity Shaped Voting Behavior." Politics & Gender 17 (2): 277–300.

48 Gidengil, Elisabeth, and Dietlind Stolle. 2021. "Beyond the Gender Gap: The Role of Gender Identity." The Journal of Politics 83 (4): 1818–22.

49 Kaufmann, Karen M., and John R. Petrocik. 1999. "The Changing Politics of American Men: Understanding the Sources of the Gender Gap." American Journal of Political Science 43 (3): 864–87.

50 Ondercin, Heather. 2017. “Who Is Responsible for the Gender Gap? The Dynamics of Men’s and Women’s Democratic Macropartisanship, 1950-2012.” Political Research Quarterly 70 (4): 749–61.

51 Kaufmann and Petrocik 1999; Lizotte, Mary-Kate. 2020. Gender Differences in Public Opinion: Values and Political Consequences. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

52 Carroll, Susan J. 1988. "Women’s Autonomy and the Gender Gap: 1980 and 1982." In The Politics of the Gender Gap: The Social Construction of Political Influence, ed. Carol M. Mueller, 236–57. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

53 Ondercin, Heather Louise, and Mary Kate Lizotte. 2020. "You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling: How Gender Shapes Affective Polarization." American Politics Research 49 (3): 282–92.

54 White, Ismail K., and Chryl Nicole Laird. 2020. Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

55 Robnett, Belinda, and Katherine Tate. 2023. Gendered Pluralism. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

56 Slaughter et al. 2024

57 Bejarano, Christina E. 2014. The Latino Gender Gap in US Politics. New York, NY: Routledge.

58 Robnett and Tate 2023

59 Hajnal, Zoltan, and Taeku Lee. 2011. Why Americans Don't Join the Party: Race, Immigration, and the Failure (of Political Parties) to Engage the Electorate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

60 Oxley, Zoe M. 2017. “Gender and the Socialization of Party Identification.” In The Political Psychology of Women in US Politics, eds. Angela L. Bos and Monica C. Schneider. New York, NY: Routledge.

61 Raychaudhuri, Tanika. 2018. "The Social Roots of Asian American Partisan Attitudes." Politics, Groups & Identities 6 (3): 389–410.

62 Hajnal and Lee 2011; Wong, Janelle. 2006. Democracy's Promise: Immigrants & American Civic Institutions. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

63 Cassese, Erin C., Tiffany D. Barnes, and Regina P. Branton. 2015. "Racializing Gender: Public Opinion at the Intersection." Politics & Gender 11 (1): 1–26.

64 Conway, M. Margaret. 2008. "The Gender Gap: A Comparison across Racial and Ethnic Groups." In Voting the Gender Gap, ed. Lois D. Whitaker, 170–83. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

65 Lizotte 2020

66 Barnes, Tiffany D., and Erin C. Cassese. 2017. "American Party Women." Political Research Quarterly 70 (1): 127–41; Hansen, Michael A., and Kathleen Dolan. 2025. "Cross-Cutting Identities in American Politics: Gender, Party, and Attitudes on Gun Reform." American Politics Research 53 (4): 293–305.

67 Elder, Laurel, and Steven Greene. 2012. The Politics of Parenthood: Causes and Consequences of the Politicization and Polarization of the American Family, 1st edition. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; Greenlee, Jill S. 2014. The Political Consequences of Motherhood. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

68 Greene, Stacey, Yalidy Matos, and Kira Sanbonmatsu. 2022. "A Path of their Own: WOC Identity Development Among Asian, Black, and Latina American Women." Paper presented at the 5th Annual Conference on Identity and Inequality, Princeton University.

69 Robnett and Tate 2023

70 Huddy, Leonie, Francis K. Neely, and Marilyn R. Lafay. 2000. “The Polls-Trends: Support for the Women's Movement." Public Opinion Quarterly 64 (3): 309–50.

71 Simien, Evelyn M. 2006. Black Feminist Voices in Politics. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

72 Gay, Claudine, and Katherine Tate. 1998. "Doubly Bound: The Impact of Gender and Race on the Politics of Black Women." Political Psychology 19 (1): 169–84.

73 Kim and Junn 2024

74 Condon, Meghan, and Amber Wichowsky. 2025. "The Size and Structure of the Gender Gap in Economic Evaluations." American Politics Research 53 (3): 227–40.

75 Condon and Wichowsky 2025, 228

76 Crowder, Chaya Y. 2025. Intersectional Solidarity: Black Women and the Politics of Group Consciousness. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

77 Crowder 2025, 122–23. Crowder (11) defines intersectional solidarity as “(1) awareness of and (2) distress over the oppression of marginalized subgroups like Black women and LGBTQ+ people of color, for example. It is a political disposition that is characterized by being aware of, appreciating, and seeking to address the challenges that are created by the interaction of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.”

78 Dolan, Kathleen. 2014. When Does Gender Matter?: Women Candidates and Gender Stereotypes in American elections. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

79 Bauer, Nichole M. 2020. The Qualifications Gap: Why Women Must Be Better than Men to Win Political Office. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; Dolan 2014; Winter, Nicholas J. G. 2023. "Hostile Sexism, Benevolent Sexism, and American Elections." Politics & Gender 19 (2): 427–56.

80 Lucas, Jennifer C., and Elizabeth Ossoff. 2023. "It’s Not Me, It’s You: Perceptions of Others and Attitudes Toward a Female Nominee in the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic Primary." Politics, Groups, and Identities 11 (2): 425–43.

81 Carroll 2021

82 Bejarano, Christina, Nadia E. Brown, Sarah Allen Gershon, and Celeste Montoya. 2021. "Shared Identities: Intersectionality, Linked Fate, and Perceptions of Political Candidates." Political Research Quarterly 74 (4): 970–85.

83 Philpot, Tasha S., and Hanes Walton. 2007. "One of Our Own: Black Female Candidates and the Voters Who Support Them." American Journal of Political Science 51 (1): 49–62.

84 Junn and Masuoka 2024; White and Laird 2020

85 Matos, Yalidy, Stacey Greene, and Kira Sanbonmatsu. 2021. "Trends: Do Women Seek ‘Women of Color’ for Public Office? Exploring Women’s Support for Electing Women of Color." Political Research Quarterly 74 (2): 259–73; Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2021. "Public Support For ‘More’ Women in Congress." Politics, Groups, and Identities 9 (3): 646–56.

86 Stauffer, Katelyn E. 2025. The Politics of Perception How Beliefs about Women's Inclusion Shape Democratic Legitimacy in the US. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

87 Delli Carpini, Michael X., and Scott Keeter. 1996. What Americans Know About Politics and Why it Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

88 Wolak, Jennifer. 2022. "Conflict Avoidance and Gender Gaps in Political Engagement." Political Behavior 44 (1): 133–56.

89 Burns, Nancy, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba. 2001. The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political Participation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

90 Dolan, Kathleen. 2011. "Do Women and Men Know Different Things? Measuring Gender Differences in Political Knowledge." The Journal of Politics 73 (1): 97–107; Stolle, Dietlind, and Elisabeth Gidengil. 2010. "What do Women Really Know? A Gendered Analysis of Varieties of Political Knowledge." Perspectives on Politics 8 (1): 93–109.

91 Mondak, Jeffery J., and Mary R. Anderson. 2004. "The Knowledge Gap: A Reexamination of Gender-Based Differences in Political Knowledge." The Journal of Politics 66 (2): 492–512.

92 Kraft, Patrick W. 2024. "Women Also Know Stuff: Challenging the Gender Gap in Political Sophistication." American Political Science Review 118 (2): 903–21. 

93 Stauffer 2025

94 Stauffer 2025, 231

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