The Year of the Women Did Not Happen

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton hoped the historic nature of her candidacy would propel an extra high turnout of women who would vote for her at extra high margins. That strategy appeared to be well-conceived as the statements of Donald Trump, especially in the Access Hollywood tape, and accusations from numerous women of his past behavior generated massive coverage and criticism.

And, indeed, there was a historic gender gap between the preference of men and women voters (24 points). But, the gender difference was a wash as she won women by 12 points, but lost men by the same percentage. In fact, her 12-point advantage over Trump was not much better than Barack Obama’s in the 2012 election (11 points over Mitt Romney). Nor was turnout higher than 2012.

Also, she lost white women by 10 points according to the exit poll. The poll confirms the significant difference the level of education makes. White women with degrees favored Clinton by 7 points, but she lost non-college graduates to Trump by 28 points.

The real gender advantage was with Trump. He won white men by 32 points, white men with college degrees by 15 points and white male non-college graduates by 49 points.

In each category, Clinton did better in Colorado. She won women by 16 points and only lost men by 8 points, providing a net positive gender difference for her of 8 points. Also, she won white women by 6 points and only lost white men by 12 points. Although the trends were similar to the national data, across-the-board she did better in Colorado and he did worse.

Also read:
Newsweek: The presidential election was a referendum on gender and women lost
FiveThirtyEight: Clinton couldn’t win over white women