Women did not rescue Kamala's campaign

Many democrats as well as Kamala pinned their hopes on the votes of women. There seemed plenty of reasons to expect that women would turn out for Kamala. This had been significant in the midterm elections of 2022 where the female vote was credited with preserving the Democrat's control of the Senate. With Donald Trump’s well-documented history of misogyny,  the importance of abortion, and the right to choose as an issue and a female presidential candidate, opinion polls showed a clear lead for Kamala among women. 

In 2016, Trump's campaign message was solidly anti-abortion, and in office he fulfilled his promise of appointing “pro-life” judges to the Supreme Court. Trump's nominees duly overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to an abortion. In 2024 Trump's campaign message avoided abortion as an issue. The unexpected success of Democrats in the mid-term suggested abortion would cost Trump votes among women. Instead, Trump emphasized crime and economic stability over abortion. By 2024 the abortion issue had lost some of its saliency as ballot initiatives in many states brought the issue to a state level and proved to many women that the war had not been lost. The argument that it was always a state issue and the Supreme Court should never have made it a universal right also held some sway with those women who resented unelected justice involvement in an overtly moral rather than judicial issue.

Kamala did indeed succeed in winning more female votes, but in smaller numbers than her Democratic predecessors. While Hillary Clinton won women by 13 points in 2016 and Joe Biden by 15 in 2020, Harris secured them by just 10 points.[1] Harris won Latina women by 24 points, significantly less than Hilary  Clinton’s 44-point lead in 2016. 

So overall the female vote failed to materialise in the numbers hoped for by the Democrats. Why?  The answer might be simply the scale of Trump's victory in both the popular and electoral college votes. After all, it may simply be that Kamala was not the right candidate and her message did not resonate as effectively as Trump’s. Women who ran in 2024 did well, with more winning races against men in Senate contests on both sides of the aisle. Trump connected with Americans on cost-of-living pressures, while Harris chose to promote the strength of the economy, which may explain why a slim majority (51 percent) of married women voted for Trump. The prices in the stores made Kamala look complacent and unapologetic.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2024/politics/2020-2016-exit-polls-2024-dg/