Data from NBC News’ exit polling in 10 key states as of 7 p.m. ET Wednesday showed large gender gaps for the candidates: Among men, who made up 47% of the electorate, Harris won 42% of the vote and Trump won 55%. Among women, who made up 53% of the electorate, 53% voted for Harris and 45% for Trump.
Broken down by race and education, the gender gap showed even wider splits in some cases: An overwhelming 91% of Black women voted for Harris vs. 7% who voted for Trump, and 57% of college-educated white women voted for Harris vs. 41% who voted for Trump.
But among white female non-college graduates, only 35% voted for Harris vs. 63% who voted for Trump.
“There is this educational divide in this country which has become much more pronounced in terms of voting behavior,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research, who conducted the final NBC News poll before the election with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. “Yes, abortion is a really, really fundamental issue to the election, but when you’re looking at particularly white women and white non-college-educated women, inflation, cost of living and other issues weaken her margins with those voters.”
A majority of voters in exit polling — 65% — said they supported abortion being legal, and 93% of all voters expressed more trust in Harris to handle abortion compared with just 5% who put their trust in Trump. But just 14% of voters said abortion mattered the most to their votes when they were asked to choose out of five issues. The economy was the most pressing issue for most voters, with 32% ranking it first.
Harris is the second woman Trump has defeated in the race for president. That does not mean that Americans are not ready for a female president, Walsh said, pointing out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016.
But, she added, Harris faced an enormous uphill battle, especially because she had so little time to introduce her stances on all the issues after Biden announced he was dropping out of the race.
“When a woman of color is running for that job, it is completely upending all the stereotypes about who can lead, and she had less than 200 days to do that,” she said.
