In The Weekly Wrap Sean Speer, our editor-at-large, analyses for Hub subscribers the big stories shaping politics, policy, and the economy in the week that was.
Gender-polarized politics is corrosive to society itself
By next week’s Weekly Wrap, U.S. election day will have come and gone even if we don’t necessarily have the final results in what’s likely to be a narrow outcome in the presidential race.
There’s much to be said about the election and the consequences for Canada of a second Trump administration or a Harris one. The Hub will aim to cover some of these questions next week. Irrespective of the result, there will also be a lot of discussion in the coming months about the future of American conservatism that the Weekly Wrap will no doubt engage with.
But in the meantime, the one aspect of the campaign that has struck me the most as it enters its final days is the degree to which it has been marked by gender polarization. I cannot think of an election campaign in my lifetime in Canada or the United States that has played out along such rigid gender lines.
Top-line polling tell part of the story. A recent New York Times/Sienna poll, for instance, gave Trump an 11-point advantage among men and a 16-point lead to Harris among women.
But the numbers are much starker when you combine age and gender. The same poll found that 69 percent of women aged 18 to 29 said they will vote for Harris compared to just 45 percent of men in the same age group. This age-based gender gap—24 percentage points—far exceeds that in any older generation of voters.
These polls are reflected in how the election has taken shape. The Harris and Trump campaigns are steeped in an understanding of themselves and their audiences in gender terms. This is an election that has segregated the sexes.
