Polling on Harris shows that sexism is prevalent in American politics
Since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race on July 21, 2024, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris because the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris’s marketing campaign has generated widespread enthusiasm and a focus. She shortly turned the official Democratic presidential nominee and erased Donald Trump’s lead over Biden in national and swing-state polling.
Harris and her operating mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, have additionally drawn tens of thousands of supporters to their latest rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada.
Though issues may change dramatically over the subsequent two-plus months, there is an actual chance that the USA might lastly elect its first feminine president.
However in polling that we performed in August 2024, after Harris turned the presumptive Democratic nominee, we discovered that sexism is nonetheless a strong power in American politics.
Hope and alter?
Sure, the scars of the 2016 marketing campaign—in which sexism performed a key function in Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Trump—are nonetheless recent for Democrats. But many hope that America has modified and has turn into extra accepting of girls in management roles.
Harris’s gender, this argument goes, gained’t be a big deterrent for voters.
On the floor, our recent nationally representative survey of 1,000 American adults helps this, with 51% of Americans agreeing with the assertion: “America is ready for its first African American female president.” Solely 23% of Americans disagreed.
Even so, some Republicans appear to think they can win by making gender an issue in the marketing campaign. This is obvious in the sexist rhetoric that Trump and different Republicans are utilizing when speaking about Harris.
Trump, who has a history of creating sexist statements, asserted that foreign leaders would regard Harris as a “play toy,” referred to her as unintelligent, and is now commenting on her look. Each the Associated Press and the New York Times have reported—primarily based on unnamed sources—that Trump has additionally referred to as Harris a “bitch” in non-public, though Trump’s spokesman denied he used that time period.
In an analogous sexist vein, Trump allies have attempted to show Harris’s previous romantic relationships into marketing campaign points, with one conservative commentator on Fox Enterprise Information crudely labeling Harris the “original hawk tuah girl,” an obscene sexual reference.
Will such makes an attempt to exploit sexism as an electoral strategy backfire? Or, in spite of everything these years, may it nonetheless be out of attain for a girl to beat sexist stereotypes and win the best workplace in the USA?
Understanding the significance of sexism
We are political scientists who study the function of identification in American politics and who conduct polls that discover Americans’ views on gender and the extent to which sexism nonetheless pervades the nation.
We performed two nationwide polls this 12 months—one in January 2024 when Biden was nonetheless in the race, and the opposite in August 2024, after Harris turned the presumptive Democratic nominee. For every ballot, we surveyed 1,000 American adults 18 and older and requested about their ideas on the election, their coverage views, and their attitudes towards varied teams in society.
With the change on the prime of the Democratic ticket, we will higher assess the affect of sexism on vote selection in the presidential election by evaluating the outcomes from January, when the race featured two male candidates, with August, when Harris entered the race.
In each surveys, we first requested respondents which candidate they’d vote for if the presidential election had been held at this time.
To measure sexism, we then requested respondents whether or not they agreed or disagreed with a collection of three statements that categorical prejudice, resentment, and animus towards ladies, or what political scientists name “hostile sexism.” The statements in the “hostile sexism” battery are: “Women seek to gain power by getting control over men”; “Women are too easily offended”; and “Women exaggerate problems they have at work.” Higher settlement with these statements indicated extra sexist views.
We additionally measured respondents’ demographics—together with age, gender, race, schooling, and revenue—their political attitudes and identities, and their racial views.
Sexism mattered, even when Biden was in the race
Due in half to Trump’s sexist rhetoric all through his campaigns and presidency, sexist attitudes have become closely linked with whom individuals support for president. On common, extra sexist people have tended to favor Republican candidates in latest elections.
Thus, even in our January ballot when Biden was the Democratic nominee, sexism was strongly correlated with assist for Trump. Once we examined a head-to-head matchup between Biden and Trump, the extra people agreed with the statements measuring hostile sexism, the extra seemingly they had been to favor Trump over Biden.
Of those that most strongly disagreed with the statements measuring hostile sexism, 73% supported Biden, whereas roughly two-thirds of these scoring highest on the sexism scale supported Trump.
Taking into account different components that affect assist for Biden—partisanship, ideology, racial attitudes, schooling, financial views, and so forth—we discovered that these with the least sexist views had an 83% probability of supporting Biden, whereas these with probably the most sexist views had a 17% probability of doing so.
With Harris, sexism issues extra
If sexism depressed people’ assist for Biden’s candidacy, does that imply Harris faces no further penalty in phrases of misplaced assist for her candidacy? Hardly.
Hostile sexism, as we measured it, prices Harris votes.
Whereas sexism mattered in January, it mattered extra in August as soon as Harris had taken over the Democratic ticket.
In a head-to-head matchup between Harris and Trump, 89% of these in the bottom third on the sexism scale—which means those that disagreed most with the statements measuring hostile sexism—assist Harris in contrast with 11% for Trump. However, solely 18% of these scoring highest on sexism assist Harris, versus 82% for Trump.
Once we take note of different issues that affect whether or not people favor Harris or Trump, our findings are much more putting. The least sexist respondents have a 92% probability of claiming they’ll vote for Harris. However probably the most sexist respondents have solely a 4% probability of supporting her.
What this implies is that, whereas sexist attitudes influenced people’ presidential preferences when Biden was the Democratic presidential nominee, they’ve a higher impact now that Harris is the Democratic candidate.
With out sexism
Since Harris appears to be narrowly main Trump in the polls, why ought to we care concerning the affect of hostile sexism in the election?
To reply this query, think about a world in which hostile sexism doesn’t affect attitudes towards presidential candidates who’re ladies. Our findings indicate that, in such a world, Harris’s lead over Trump is likely to be bigger. Put merely, hostile sexism is serving to to make the election nearer than it could in any other case be.
Sexism has long played a powerful role in influencing Americans’ voting behavior and attitudes towards political issues. This is particularly so at this time, given the excessive political significance of gender-related points resembling abortion, contraception, and LGBTQ+ rights.
Our evaluation shows that individuals with unfavorable attitudes towards ladies are a lot much less more likely to assist Harris for president. Whether or not the Harris marketing campaign can efficiently navigate this actuality is nonetheless to be decided.
Adam Eichen is a PhD scholar in political science at UMass Amherst.
Jesse Rhodes is an affiliate professor of political science at UMass Amherst.
Tatishe Nteta is a provost professor of political science and director of the UMass Amherst Ballot at UMass Amherst.
This text is republished from The Conversation beneath a Artistic Commons license. Learn the original article.