How Kamala Harris Is Changing the 2024 Electorate

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How Kamala Harris Is Changing the 2024 Electorate
PUBLISHED 8/26/2024 by Jodi Enda


Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff step off Air Force Two as they arrive at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Aug. 23, 2024. (Kevin Lamarque / AFP via Getty Images)

Vice President Kamala Harris has changed the face of the upcoming presidential election. She also appears to be changing the face of this year’s ***electorate***. Even before accepting her party’s nomination Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention, polls showed that Harris’ candidacy was motivating large swaths of previously unenthused Americans to engage in the election and, if the trend holds, to vote. With her in the race, the electorate is likely to be younger, more female and more supportive of abortion rights than it would have been with President Biden as the Democratic nominee, polls have found.

“Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, compared to Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, is a sea change in overall motivation,” said Melissa Williams, executive director of a Super PAC for EMILYs List, which recruits, trains and finances Democratic women who support abortion rights. In the eight days after Biden withdrew from the race and passed the torch to Harris, the motivation to vote among people in five battleground states jumped 42 points, from 37 percent to 79 percent, according to a poll conducted for EMILYs List and released during the Chicago convention.

The shift in enthusiasm was even greater among women, especially women between the ages of 18 and 44. Only 33 percent of all women and a moribund 18 percent of those under 45 had been motivated to vote when Biden was still in the race. Since Democratic candidates need a strong showing from women to overcome Republicans’ traditional dominance among men, that augured poorly for the president’s reelection chances. Once Harris replaced him as the likely nominee, women’s motivation to vote shot up 49 points to 82 percent, EMILYs List reported. Women under 45, meanwhile, showed an astounding 57-point increase, to 75 percent. The same poll, conducted in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, found that in the first week of her race, Harris demonstrated that she is much more likely than Biden to win votes from those newly motivated women. “Polling shows that women want to vote for a woman candidate, and that this is one factor for women deciding how they will vote,” said Kathy Spillar, Ms. executive editor.
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The Democratic Party’s base is made up of many groups, but it starts with women. In 2020, 57 percent of women and 45 percent of men voted for Biden, a 12-point gender gap, according to exit polls. (Numbers vary depending on the poll, but not significantly.) Trump won the support of just 42 percent of women, but a majority (53 percent) of men. In other words, women put Biden in office. But not all women. Biden won over just 44 percent of white women, compared to a full 90 percent of Black women and 69 percent of Latinas and Asian American women. This same pattern has existed for decades. When Democrats win the presidency, it is usually because of their support among women. Not only do women vote for Democrats more than do men, they register to vote and cast their votes in greater proportions. And because women make up the majority of the population, the voting booth is one place where they can wield more power than men.

This article was produced in collaboration with The Fuller Project, a journalism nonprofit that reports on global issues affecting women.

https://msmagazine.com/2024/08/26/kamala-harris-popular-women-men-motivate-vote-elections-abortion/