Democrats bet on women showing up in force. They didn’t.

At the very least one factor was taken with no consideration earlier than voting day – ladies throughout the US had been going to prove for Kamala Harris.

Simply as months of relentless polling confirmed Harris in a digital tie with Donald Trump, lots of those self same surveys advised the story of a yawning gender hole.

It was a method Harris’s group was betting on, hoping that an over-performance amongst ladies may make up for losses elsewhere.

It didn’t occur.

Throughout the nation, nearly all of ladies did forged their ballots for Harris, however not by the historic margins she wanted. As a substitute, if early exit polls bear out, Harris’s benefit amongst ladies total – round 10 factors – really fell 4 factors in need of Joe Biden’s in 2020.

Democrats suffered a ten level drop amongst Latino ladies, whereas failing to maneuver the needle amongst non-college educated ladies in any respect, who once more went for Trump 63-35, preliminary data suggests.

The shortfall was not for lack of making an attempt.

All through her 15-week marketing campaign, a lot of Harris’s messaging was aimed straight at ladies, most clearly together with her emphasis on abortion.

On the path, Harris made reproductive rights a cornerstone of her pitch. She repeatedly reminded voters that Trump had as soon as bragged about his position in overturning Roe v Wade – a ruling that ended the nationwide proper to an abortion.

“I’ll combat to revive what Donald Trump and his hand-selected Supreme Court docket justice took away from the ladies of America,” Harris mentioned at her closing handle in DC final week.

Her strongest commercials featured ladies who had suffered below state abortion bans – deemed “Trump abortion bans” by Harris – together with those that mentioned they had been denied look after miscarriages.

The technique, it appeared, was to harness the identical enthusiasm for abortion entry that drove Democrats’ sudden success within the 2022 midterms.

Abortion rights stay broadly widespread – this Gallup poll in May suggested just one in 10 Individuals thought it must be banned.

And even these election outcomes appeared to underline that. Seven out of the ten states the place abortion was on the poll voted in favour of abortion rights.

However that help didn’t translate into help for Harris.

Abortion did matter to ladies, it simply didn’t matter sufficient, mentioned Evan Ross Smith, a pollster and marketing campaign marketing consultant.

“Voters – significantly the ladies – who really feel strongest about abortion are already voting for Democrats,” he mentioned. However Democrats had been unable to lift the significance of abortion for girls who didn’t but see it as a urgent problem.

“The abortion argument didn’t penetrate in any respect with non-college educated ladies, didn’t transfer them an inch. They usually misplaced floor with Latinos,” Mr Smith mentioned.

For a lot of, the decisive problem proved to be the financial system.

In pre-election surveys and preliminary exit knowledge, inflation and affordability continued to prime lists of voters’ issues. And for these voters, Trump was the overwhelming favorite.

Jennifer Varvar, 51, an unbiased from Grand Junction, Colorado mentioned she had not even thought of a vote for Harris due to the monetary stress she confronted over the previous 4 years.

“For me and my household, we’re in a worse place now than we ever have been financially. It’s a battle. I’ve three boys to place meals on the desk for,” she mentioned. Issues had been higher below Trump, she mentioned, and that’s why she voted for him.

But when gender did not divide the citizens in the best way some anticipated, it nonetheless performed an element within the Harris defeat, say some analysts.

There have been many explanations supplied for Trump’s resounding victory however for some there may be one factor that stands out.

“I do suppose that the nation continues to be sexist and isn’t prepared for a girl president,” mentioned Patti Solis Doyle, who managed Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential marketing campaign, to Politico.

In contrast to Clinton, who explicitly leaned into her gender and the history-making potential of her marketing campaign, Harris was noticeably reluctant to do the identical.

There’s a widespread perception that the nation is extra prepared for a girl president now than when Clinton ran a second time in 2016. But it surely’s nonetheless an open query.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in October instructed 15% of these surveyed wouldn’t be capable of vote for a feminine president.

And Donald Trump, who doubled down on masculinity on this election, might have performed an element in exploiting that.

“He framed being president as being a troublesome man in a harmful world… he framed that because the job description,” mentioned Mr Smith.

“And that’s one of many hardest attainable job descriptions for a girl to efficiently meet, within the minds of many Individuals.”