The Daily - The Gender Election

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

A stark new gender divide has formed among the country’s youngest voters. Young men have drifted toward Donald Trump, while young women are surging toward Kamala Harris.As a result, men and women under 30, once similar in their politics, are now farther apart than any other generation of voters.Claire Cain Miller, a reporter who covers gender for The New York Times, discusses a divide that is defining this election.Guest: Claire Cain Miller, a reporter for The New York Times covering gender, families and education.Background reading: How the last eight years made young women more liberal.Many Gen Z men feel left behind. Some see Trump as an answer.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. A dramatic new gender divide has formed among the country's youngest voters. Young men have drifted toward Donald Trump, while young women are surging toward Kamala Harris. As a result, men and women under the age of 30, once similar in their politics, are now farther apart than any other generation of voters. Today, my colleague Claire Kane Miller on a divide that is defining this election. It's Wednesday, October 23rd.

Claire, hi. It's Wednesday, October 23rd. Claire, hi, welcome back to the show. I'm glad to be here. So you've been doing a lot of reporting on young people, and you've identified something very interesting among these young people and how they vote. Tell me about that reporting. Yeah. and how they vote. Tell me about that reporting. Yeah, so I covered gender from a data perspective, and we started to see something really surprising this election cycle,

which is that the difference between how young men and young women are voting is really growing much larger than it has been in the past. And explain that. What does that gap look like? So in general, women are more likely to vote democratic than men. But in most age groups, the difference is pretty small. Among the youngest voters, which means 18 to 29 year olds, it's really big this time around, bigger than for any older age group. Young men are a small majority of them

planning to vote for Donald Trump. That has not necessarily generally been true of young people. The majority of young people voted for Biden no matter their gender. Right, you think of young people as being pretty progressive. You do in general and they are.

But this time polls are showing something different for young men. Just over half of them appear to be voting for Donald Trump. Meanwhile, two thirds or more of young women are planning to vote for Kamala Harris, which is a bigger share than any other group by age or gender. Interesting.

So you have this kind of new gap that was not true for young people, say, a generation ago. Or even an election ago. And the really fascinating thing is that the biggest change has been among young women. They have always leaned left. But just in the last eight years, they have begun leaning left much more than they had been before. It's a really sharp rise in their liberal identification, which political scientists told me, you don't really see this kind of change so quickly among a group of people.

And it's true of all young women. There's no difference by education, even though education usually affects how people vote, there's no difference by race. Really, when you look at young women in America today, across categories, they're moving left. JILL RILEY And what about men? KATE BOWEN So men are moving somewhat to the right.

It's been a little overblown, this idea that all young men are backing Trump. But there has been some movement to the right. Men without college degrees who finished high school or may have their GED, they're more likely to be backing Trump. Got it. So for women, it's just everybody. But for men, the change is happening really just among guys who didn't go to college. For the most part.

OK. So this is incredibly interesting to me, Claire. As you know, a former and recovering demographics reporter. It's also kind of a mystery, right? Like what is going on here? What is driving this difference in this kind of, new demographic political tree ring, if you will. How did these two groups come to be so far apart? So when I saw this gap in the voting data, I started thinking about a lot of the reporting

that I've done over the years on how men and women are coming into adulthood, this 18 to 29 year old age range, with really different experiences and expectations. So I'm Alekhad Bowman. experiences and expectations. So. So I'm Alekhad Bowman. I'm 23 years old and I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm Danielle Stevenson. I'm 25. I live in Oakland, California.

Daniel Rompstad, Lapeer, Michigan. 29. We decided to call a bunch of voters from around the country. Yvonne Flores, 29 years old. I live in Cibolo, Texas. Allison Simpson. He decided to call a bunch of voters from around the country. I did these interviews along with Stella Tan and Luke Vanderplug, two daily producers. Are you planning to vote in this election? Do you know who you're going to vote for? Yes ma'am. It's going to be Trump. I don't trust.

And we focused on three young men voting for Trump. I definitely know I'm going to vote for Kamala. And three young women voting for Harris. And we realized that the political outlooks we were seeing were shaped by forces that started much earlier in these voters' lives, in their childhoods. We realized there was a deeper story here. Okay, so let's talk about this tectonic shift you're seeing in the younger generation.

You said the change really started from the very start when these people were children. Tell me about that. So you've probably heard this phrase, kindergarten is the new first grade. And basically what that means is that school has become much more academic much earlier. Starting at five, kids are expected to sit still for longer,

to learn to read earlier, to do assignments. And this has really ended up benefiting girls more than boys because girls tend to mature earlier than boys so they're more able to act like this in kindergarten and that continues through school and we really heard about this from the young women that we interviewed who were supporting Harris. I mean I've've always really, really loved school, honestly. I've always loved learning. I've always been such a nerd.

School never really was an issue for me. You know, when I was growing up, there was this sense of boys get called on more. Boys are better than math. Girls need to stand up for themselves. And that's really changed. It was just kind of a given that I was going to go to college. I never even thought about not going to college. I never even thought

about not going to college. Girls are outpacing boys in school. It's true in high school and college. It's true as early as kindergarten. And their opportunities in life, the roles that they can play really opened up from just a couple generations ago. Now they're told they can do anything. Definitely, I grew up very empowered. It was girl power, women equality. I was really bossy when I was a kid. And my dad told me to not let people call me bossy, that I was a leader. Girls of this generation were raised in the 90s and the 2000s. And that was this era of really building up girls' self-esteem.

I was always taught I could do whatever I wanted to do. They're being told you can be a doctor, you can be a lawyer, you can be an astronaut, you can be an engineer, you can be president of the United States. The world is your oyster. That's right. I was a very curious student. I wasn't really disengaged like a lot of my peers were. Of course, some young men really loved school. They excelled at it. But some of the men we've talked to who were voting for Trump. So I actually struggled a lot in school. I always had so much energy.

And then I'd be forced to sit down and shut up pretty much. They said they had a really hard time in school. It was just sitting down for eight hours in a room. I just, nothing about me melded with school. And given that school has become more academic early on, it is more challenging for some boys. Their executive function comes online a little bit later. They can take a little bit longer to develop that ability

to sit still, to focus a long time. You know, my parents would be like, oh, boys will be boys. And I feel like that hasn't been around in a long time. I feel like it was on its way out whenever I was younger. And I feel like it's pretty well gone nowadays. And so the message that boys are receiving is that they're just not measuring up.

Like all the teachers, you try and force college down your throat, maybe college isn't for everyone. And a lot of them told me that they hadn't really considered college or there were just so many hurdles that it fell out of the picture for them and that they were eager to sort of get out of school

and get into some sort of work that allowed them to use their hands to do something different. And this is really showing up in the data. Women are graduated from high school at higher rates than men, and they're going to college and finishing college at much higher rates too. And I'm assuming those worse educational outcomes for men

are also affecting their job prospects, right? Like that's the next stage in our life cycle. That's absolutely true. So in this same time period, it's become much harder to earn a middle class wage without a college degree. That's particularly true for men because the jobs that men without college degrees used to do that earned them enough to support a family were largely in manufacturing.

And these are the jobs that since the 1980s have really disappeared from the United States in large numbers. Right. They have either been replaced by robots or they've been sent abroad. Most of my entire dad's side of the family all has worked for one of the big three. And my dad's told me so many stories about like, once you turn 18, you go down to Detroit and the factory and work till you get your pension. And a lot of the men that I spoke to told me that their grandfathers had worked in factories their whole careers and stayed there and you know supported a family and that they no longer had an option like that. It definitely

seemed like it was a lot more straightforward back then, where now is less clear exactly what you want to do. And I called respondents from our New York Times, Sienna College polls, who were young men who said they were supporting Trump. Very interestingly to me, I could not see in that data what their jobs were, but nearly everyone I reached worked in some sort of auto job. By aligning vehicles, you know, painting cars, bumping cars. Either repairing cars or selling cars or doing something like that. And when I asked them about it, actually, I love my job, I probably could fix pretty much anything on a car. They said that they felt like they had found jobs that were really good fits for them. I mean, it's giving them the on, something to pull my energy towards?

I'm a very hands-on person, so like, if I was like in a classroom just sitting down reading about this stuff, I probably would not be as proficient as I am with it. And yet, the jobs that are growing in the American workforce right now are so-called pink-collar jobs. They're called that because these are the jobs that women have traditionally done. These are mostly jobs in the healthcare sector, things like home health aides or nursing assistants. It's been really, really hard to get men to do these fast growing jobs. They pay less. There's a bit of a stigma around them as women's work.

During COVID and stuff, I did work as a nursing assistant with my mom. One of the men that we interviewed told me that he did one of these jobs for a little bit during the pandemic. I hated it. I'm not a people person. It wasn't great. And he ended up, you know, in the end going back to a job in the auto industry. So what did this amount to then for these men when it came to their pocketbooks and

being able to buy stuff and afford things? So a lot of the men I talked to, and we've heard this throughout this election, said they were worried about economic issues. I feel like it is ridiculously hard to buy anything now. Like groceries are, I'm just in shock. You've had to raise the price of the Arizona tees. It's kind of such. I think the last time I had to buy eggs, it'm just in shock. They've had it raised the price of the Arizona teas. It's kind of fucked. I think the last time I had to buy eggs,

it was like six bucks. Gas is expensive again. Gas was at one time like $2.18 or something. The other day I was telling my dude, almost $4.50, like what the heck? And when I dug into what that meant for them, I thought it was really interesting. Honestly, as dumb as it sounds, as long as I make enough money to support myself and my fiance,

and God willing, I feel the, you know, afford to have children, that's my goal. What matters to me is one day I provide for a family. It should be my job to provide for her and the family. It was, they wanted to be able to provide for a family. I should be able to take care of her under one income and her not have to work because I feel like she shouldn't have to. I feel like if she wants to be a state health mom,

she totally can. Many of these men had not yet started families. They were very young, but they had been raised believing that that was their role in society. I feel like in the certain state that we're in as a nation, I feel like that's almost impossible. When it comes to the older generation, it's not the same.

I don't think you could buy a house with two blueberries and a nickel anymore. You know, it was a dream of mine to own a house and I feel like now I know I can't. And they felt that in this economy, they couldn't be providers. I feel like, I feel like you're not a man until you have to take care of other people. People financially and emotionally support those around you. It makes you a man. And that really seemed to strike at the core of their identity.

I've seen a lot in my little 22 years of life. I don't think a driver's license makes you a man. I don't think serving time in the military makes you a man. I don't think doing hard, rigorous work makes you a man. I think when you take responsibility for others, I think that's what makes you a man, to be honest. Right, it's like what it means to be a man traditionally had been built around that.

So what happens when you can't make the money and that goes away? Yeah, and so much has changed in nearly half of households with children. Women are the primary breadwinner or are the only breadwinner. They're single mothers. That's a huge change from just a few decades ago.

The script for men really changed. Maybe being the household provider is not their main thing anymore, but they haven't been given a new script. They didn't feel like there was, you know, a new way that they could contribute to society being offered here. So the expectations that these young men have are the same as previous generations, but the reality is different. Their reality has changed. They can no longer meet those expectations. And as we know, unmet expectations are a principle ingredient of political change.

That's right. And then enters Donald Trump talking about providing an economy in which men can do better than they are right now. I feel like Trump's going to really be able to fix the issue he's been having with trying to spend millions of dollars elsewhere, financially supporting Ukraine. I feel like he's going to really turn around and focus on America. When it comes to tax breaks, paying more taxes, I know especially for corporations, I really believe that it opens up a lot more people to open up more business,

so bring a lot more jobs over here. And Trump has this, you know, super macho demeanor. A lot of the men said, I feel like we were super strong under Trump. Vladimir Putin didn't invade Ukraine until after Trump left. They did think it was important for a president to project strength on the world stage, you know, against foreign adversaries. And then we have JD Vance. He's a very smart individual.

And I feel like he seems like a really well-put-together guy. Providing this sort of return to traditional families with men as breadwinners and women having lots of kids and taking care of them. And we have this ticket offering these young men a script to follow. And that was really attractive to them. But the women that we interviewed,

they had taken an entirely different message from the last eight years. the last eight years. We'll be right back. So Claire, you said that young women have taken really an entirely different message from the recent years. Tell me about that. What message did they take? So remember, like we talked about, this was the era when girls were raised to believe

that they could do anything, that they could be anything. There was almost this idea that the work of feminism had been done and equality had been achieved. When did you personally start paying attention to politics? I would say in 2016. Definitely had my eyes open in college, I think, because of the 2016 election. And then came 2016, which was Donald Trump

against Hillary Clinton. I was really, really excited. I have always really liked Hillary Clinton. I think she's more than qualified. She articulates herself very well. That felt like a real moment where I had some ideas about, yeah, justice and equality and human rights. And then seeing the things that Trump was saying and how people were responding to them

at his rallies made me feel very shocked and concerned. It was just the way that they tore Hillary Clinton down. Of course we all remember some of the things that Trump said. Just things like she's a disgusting, vile woman. People just started really, really hating on her. It's not just Trump. It was the conservatives in my life. The way that they would talk about her and insult her, it was disturbing to watch.

And there were the Access Hollywood tapes. Some of the things that he was saying about, you know, grab her by the pussy or like you can say whatever to women. And then Hillary Clinton lost. Seeing Trump elected made me realize, oh no, this is how most people feel about, you know, women and people of color in our country. And that was really disillusioning. And in the interviews that we did with these young women,

they said that was really a turning point for them. I was 17 that election. I was becoming an adult, like literally about to turn 17. I wasn't old enough to vote, but I was old enough to watch what was going on during that election. Seeing things change in such a huge way at this time definitely opened my eyes politically and made me understand that I had things to be angry about. And political science has shown us that what happens politically when you're around 18 is really formative in your views. And this is what these women experienced. And then Also, Me Too, I think, was a big moment.

Soon after Donald Trump was elected, the Me Too movement happened. I personally identified with Me Too because Me Too, and I feel like everyone I know has this story. Which was, of course, spurred on by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein but led to this realization that sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace was really quite common. As a young girl with a Twitter account, it was really grounding to understand that some

of the harassment maybe that I'd experienced even at a really young age wasn't just something that I was experiencing. And the women that I talked to, you know, said that this continued to be this shock for them. Seeing online, oh, this is something that can happen to you at any age. And it's kind of just part of the experience of being a woman. You know, they were entering the real world. They were becoming adults at a time when it was becoming extremely clear that in fact sexism was not in the least a thing of the past and that the world was

not at all the way that they were told it would be. Okay, so the next event in the political calendar that is likely, I imagine, to be meaningful to the women you talked to was the Dobbs abortion case, right? June 2022, when the federal protection for abortion went away. And you know, I remember for years interviewing young women and they didn't really think that much about abortion or talk that much about abortion. But as soon as Roe fell, suddenly, this was really a big issue for them. That's right. I'd write about Roe V. Wade in history books

and kind of thought to myself, wow, that's so crazy. Well, that feels like just a given. Anybody can get an abortion. I was shocked to be honest. I never thought that it was actually on the table. Seeing American history go backwards was really surreal. This was the thing that took them from their eyes being opened about women's rights and the unfinished work of feminism to really connecting it to political activism.

Like, okay, if the president, whoever was president, got us into this mess, maybe the next president could get us out of it. They told me that this was the first time, you know, as young adults that they realized who you vote for could have a direct impact on your rights. The political climate towards women is scary. I feel like it's kind of, it's an attack on women to be completely honest with you. And they said it made them realize that as one woman told me, Donald Trump's words, people sometimes say that he just talks and that he doesn't mean them. And that Dobbs was a clear example of how words can have real life effects. And it also made me think, wow, if we can roll this back,

what else could change? I really do think like if we give them room to make more decisions like they'll come after birth control. As much as you know I believe women are equal, does the rest of the world, do the people in power feel that way? Because it doesn't feel that way right now. They said that they had always been inclined to vote Democratic. I've definitely gone more and more to the left. But it had moved them much further to the left. My dad would say things like, okay, well, just wait, you're gonna become more conservative the older that you get.

And I'm like waiting, because I'm older and I feel more progressive than I was then. At one point in time, I would probably take more of, I wouldn't say like a middle view, but closer to the middle to where I could see the other party's point of view. But at this point in time, no, I can't. I can't with the way that they have conducted themselves. It just pushed me further against what the Republican Party believed. And this is true on abortion. This is the big driver for them.

But interestingly, it's not just abortion or the so-called women's issues. They also move to the left on climate. They move to the left on guns. They move to the left on guns. They moved to the left on race relations. Dobbs was this turning point that really made this generation of young women more liberal than anyone else in America today. And do we know why on those other things as well, Claire? Why is it such a clean sweep? Political scientists say they're not exactly sure.

Once people really start to think about their political identities, they apply it, obviously, not just to one issue, but to more issues. Gun control activists, high schoolers, a lot of that movement was really led by women. There is an idea in general that men vote more on economic issues and that women vote more on issues that have to do with social well-being and so that could be a reason that climate and guns have also you know become issues that young women are focused on but really the political scientists that I talked to said it's just evidence of the ways in which this group of people is moving to the left across the board.

And Kamala Harris is presumably benefiting from this move. Yes, and the young women that I talked to. Honestly, I feel really excited to vote for a woman for the first time. She is concerned about women's rights. That's like, you know, at the forefront. They had felt so energized by these issues that we've been discussing. Just getting on TikTok, you're seeing everyone ramped up.

They had not felt super energized by Joe Biden. They feel very differently about Kamala Harris. I don't think that I had felt that exciting since Obama, to be honest. I do feel honestly just a bit excited to be a part of history. Okay, so both parties are tapping into these big social and economic and cultural changes that are running deep beneath the politics. And given that this is such a deep thing and that young voters are so different now on the political front, what does this mean for these young people and their futures?

Yeah, it's really interesting. Young men and young women are moving in different directions, diverging from one another in a lot of ways. It's politics, it's education, it's religion. Men are more likely than their female peers to go to church now, which is a surprising new development. It's media, they're consuming sometimes entirely

different media from different sources. And so they're really beginning to live sort of different lives in a lot of areas. I mean, I don't use dating apps anymore, but back when I did have one, I mean, like the amount of women that were like, if you voted for Trump, don't even talk to me. And I'm like, okay. And we know that in this era of increasing political polarization,

people have become less likely to date people who disagree with them politically. I think that even if you're a man who's voting for Trump only for the economy, you have to turn a blind eye to a lot of other issues. And I would not date a man who thinks like that. That didn't used to be a thing. It's becoming more of a thing. So I think it probably does affect the way that they think about who's going to be in their future and how they form families and what they're looking for from one another.

But interestingly, you know, many of the young men we talked to said they were leaning toward Trump because they thought he would be better on the economy. And in part, they were prioritizing the economy as an issue because they felt this need to be a provider, to buy a home, you know, these things that were really bound up in their sense of what they wanted for themselves. And I'm just curious what you think of that logic. I understand it, if I'm being honest. I'm trying to give the boys a little bit of grace here. The thing is I'm deeply empathetic to it because I've been taught that being a man means being a provider.

Men are taught, like, you bring home more money. You are head of household. Some of the women that we talked to said, you know, they were empathetic to men's changing roles and this notion that they had wanted to be a provider and now they didn't know what their role was. If I really do like a searching moral inventory, I would probably have to reckon with making more money than my partner. That's just something that I would need to get over.

Some of them acknowledged how deep seated some of these expectations for men still were. I think it's important, yeah, for them to provide for their family, absolutely. To be the sole provider, no. And they told us that they absolutely wanted partners who would contribute to the household, but. The world is too modern now

for the man to have to be the provider. I'll speak from my own personal experience right now. I'm the main provider. I make more than my partner. And I don't mind it at all. I'm like, you so pretty, it's okay. The idea of being a sole provider for a woman and their children was outdated,

but you know, they could see where these men were coming from. My fiance is conservative, I roll. Oh, interesting. Yeah, he's voting for Trump. Some of the young voters that we interviewed were even in relationships with people voting for the opposite candidate.

I do have a girlfriend. She's a liberal, a liberal. She is very pro-choice. She does not like Trump. So our dynamic is super weird. We can't really talk politics, to be honest with you. We try, but I just I can't see his point. Are you dating anyone right now?

No. OK. Do you want to be dating someone? Oh, absolutely. I'm very lonely. So it's this very complicated moment because we know that these experiences you have and these beliefs that form when you're coming of age really do shape your views for the rest of your life. And so we could be looking at a generation of women that continues to be sort of more liberal than ever and a generation of men that continues to be sort of more liberal than ever, and a generation of men that continues to be figuring out what their place is in American society.

Claire, thank you. Thank you. Claire, thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. On Tuesday, an Israeli strike near Lebanon's largest public hospital killed 18 people, injured dozens, and damaged the hospital, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Israel's military said that it had targeted Hezbollah, not the medical facility.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his 11th trip to the Middle East since the war with Hamas began last year, pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to, quote, capitalize on the killing of the Hamas leader, Yair Hasenwar, and end the war in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu, in a statement, emphasized the need to fight Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran, but did not mention a truce. And Michael Jeffries, the former longtime chief executive of Abercrombie & Fitch, was indicted on charges of running an international sex trafficking scheme during several years of his tenure at the company.

The indictment includes accusations from 15 people who said that they had been coerced into sex acts. It echoes allegations first unearthed last year by a BBC investigation and a class action lawsuit, accusing Jeffries of using the prospect of modeling jobs at Abercrombie to exploit and abuse men. Jeffries and his partner, Matthew Smith, were arrested in Florida on Tuesday. Matthew Smith, were arrested in Florida on Tuesday. Today's episode was produced by Stella Tan, Asta Chaturvedi, Luke Venderplug, Diana Wynn,

and Eric Krupke, with help from Alex Stern. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Chris Haxel, with help from Paige Cowitt. Contains original music by Marian Lozano, Rowan Nimisto, Dan Powell and Pat McCusker and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansfork of Wonderly. That's it for the daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow. 1