The penultimate Week 8 of the Washington Monthly Gender Gap Tracker is the second-worst for Kamala Harris to date.
And it probably would have been the worst one of the campaign if three national polls released in the past week showing Donald Trump ahead also released their gender crosstabs.
That doesn't mean the race is over and misogyny is destined to doom Harris.
Trump nearly erased the Gender Gap Tilt (the difference between her margin with women, and his margin with men) in Week 2 of the Tracker, covering the week before the lone presidential debate, but Harris widened it in the following week. While we are near the end of the campaign, Harris can still close strong.
But how best to do that?
She should take some advice from last night's CNN Town Hall attendees, and go high.
I'll explain, and give you the Week 8 Gender Gap Tracker numbers. But first, here's what's leading the Washington Monthly website:
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The Constitution Doesn’t Entitle Drug Manufacturers to a Sweetheart Deal: Nina Henry, counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center, defends the new law empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Click here for the full story.
Three Unknown Data Points That Will Decide the Election: My look at what we don't know about the early vote: the rate of partisan defections, the direction independents will break, and the partisan mix of early voters and Election Day voters. Click here for the full story.
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I've written that Harris has run a near error-free campaign, and I don't think she needs a radical, panicky course correction just because the polls have gotten a little tighter.
But after Harris finished her hour-long town hall with undecided Pennsylvanians, five of the attendees participated in an on-air discussion.
She generally received favorable reviews, with three of the five saying they now planned to vote for her. (The other two remained undecided.)
But they all indicated they wanted to her to stop directly attacking Trump.
One woman said:
Another thing that is very much a turnoff, and this is with both candidates, stop trashing each other. We don't care. Stop trashing Trump. Trump, stop trashing the vice president. We don't care. The voters don't care. We don't even know the people they're talking about, that this person said this and that. How does that impact the voters? That's who you're talking to, that's who you're serving. This feels like high school gossip.
Then another echoed the point, speaking specifically about Harris:
I think, from prior to even entering the race as the presidential candidate, and then once she ultimately was nominated, for a very long time, she didn't stoop to his level. And as of late last couple of weeks, I've really started to see, like you said, this schoolyard bullying. And I think that's beneath her. She doesn't need to do that. She can run on her policy. She can run on her position. You don't need to stoop to his level ... I respect her more ... if she would just stay out of that arena.
Now let's not be naive. We know voters always say they don't like negative campaigning, yet negative campaigning often works.
But often the presidential candidate leaves the negative campaign work to the ad-makers, the surrogates, and the running mate, so the top of the ticket can stay above the fray.
As the campaign heads into the final 10 days, it's time, to quote Harris, to turn the page.
In fact, Harris could even say so publicly, something like: You're exhausted. I'm exhausted. I've said all I have to say about that man. You already know who he is. From today until the end of the campaign, I will only talk to you about my vision for the future and how we can work together to move America forward.
Meanwhile, Tim Walz can take on the traditional running mate responsibility of Top Attack Dog, which happens to be something Walz is really good at doing.
In the past several days Walz has launched these salvos:
* "There is something not just nuts but cruel about a billionaire using people's livelihood as a political prop. His agenda lets big corporations not pay people for overtime and diminishes those very workers he was cosplaying as [at McDonald's]."
* "This room should be full of the people who fly the 'Don't Tread on Me' flags because Trump wants to tread all over your personal freedoms ... We need to start flying that flag."
* "The idea of sending U.S. military personnel against American citizens makes me sick to my stomach ... We'll let the lawyers decide if what he said was treason. But what I know is: It's a call for violence, plain and simple, and it's pretty damn un-American."
Let Walz throw those roundhouses and let Harris show America what the future looks like.
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And now, the Week 8 Gender Gap Tracker.
To refresh: the Gender Gap Tracker each week follows both the Gender Gap—the distance between the margin among women and the margin among men—and the Gender Gap Tilt—the difference between the female lead and the male lead. Only polls with gender breakdowns are included in the Tracker's averages.
Here are the Gender Gap and Gender Gap Tilt numbers for the last three presidential elections, according to post-election analysis conducted by the political data firm Catalist:
2020
GENDER GAP: 19
GENDER GAP TILT: Joe Biden +7
WOMEN
Joe Biden: 56
Donald Trump: 43
Margin: Biden +13
MEN
Donald Trump: 52
Joe Biden: 46
Margin: Trump +6
2016
GENDER GAP: 24
GENDER GAP TILT: Hillary Clinton +2
WOMEN
Hillary Clinton: 54
Donald Trump: 41
Margin: Clinton +13
MEN
Donald Trump: 52
Hillary Clinton: 41
Margin: Trump +11
2012
GENDER GAP: 15
GENDER GAP TILT: Barack Obama +7
WOMEN
Barack Obama: 55
Mitt Romney: 44
Margin: Obama +11
MEN
Mitt Romney: 51
Barack Obama: 47
Margin: Romney +4
Trump's entrance to the presidential arena in 2016 immediately widened the gender gap. In fact, the 24-point gap in 2016 is the largest recorded in exit polls since at least 1972. (The 2016 gap was the same in exit polling as in the Catalist analysis.)
The only similarly sized gender gap, as I previously noted in August, was the 22-point divide in 2000, when men sided with George W. Bush by 11 points, and women did the same with Al Gore.
But almost every presidential election since 1980 has had a double-digit gender gap. And in almost every one since 1996, Democrats have won the female vote, and Republicans have won the male vote.
With that history in mind, how is Harris faring?
Below are the Week 8 Gender Gap Tracker numbers, with comparisons to Week 7. Last week's numbers in the October 17 newsletter have been revised as some polls—sampled during the Week 7 period—were released after publication. Numbers do not always add up perfectly because of the effects of rounding.
WASHINGTON MONTHLY GENDER GAP TRACKER
OCTOBER 24 EDITION
GENDER GAP: 21.6 (change from last week: up 1.9)
GENDER GAP TILT: Harris +0.9 (2.5 shift toward Trump)
OVERALL AVERAGE
Harris: 49.1
Trump: 48.2
Margin: Harris +0.9 (1.2-point shift toward Trump)
FEMALE AVERAGE
Harris: 54.2
Trump: 43.0
Margin: Harris +11.2 (0.4-point shift toward Trump)
MALE AVERAGE
Trump: 54.0
Harris: 43.6
Margin: Trump +10.4 (2.3-point shift toward Trump)
Last week I wrote that Harris had been showing "resilience" with men, with the gender that more closely resembled the victories Biden and Obama campaigns than the losing Clinton campaign.
But in this week's Tracker, Harris's numbers look more like Clinton's, with Trump widening his margin with men to double digits, reducing Harris's overall margin to less than a percentage point. Meanwhile, Harris's current lead with women is a little smaller than Clinton's, failing to negate the erosion with men.
Needless to say, Harris likely needs another rebound if she is going to turn the gender gap back to her favor and ultimately win the Electoral College.
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Bill Scher, Washington Monthly politics editor
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