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

At slightest 1 happening was taken for granted earlier voting time - women crossed the US were going to crook retired for Kamala Harris.

Just arsenic months of relentless polling showed Harris successful a virtual necktie with Donald Trump, galore of those aforesaid surveys told the communicative of a yawning sex gap.

It was a strategy Harris’s squad was betting on, hoping that an over-performance among women could marque up for losses elsewhere.

It didn’t happen.

Across the country, the bulk of women did formed their ballots for Harris, but not by the historical margins she needed. Instead, if aboriginal exit polls carnivore out, Harris’s vantage among women wide - astir 10 points - really fell 4 points abbreviated of Joe Biden’s successful 2020.

Democrats suffered a 10 constituent driblet among Latino women, portion failing to determination the needle among non-college educated women astatine all, who again went for Trump 63-35, preliminary information suggests.

The shortfall was not for deficiency of trying.

Throughout her 15-week campaign, overmuch of Harris’s messaging was aimed straight astatine women, astir evidently with her accent connected abortion.

On the trail, Harris made reproductive rights a cornerstone of her pitch. She repeatedly reminded voters that Trump had erstwhile bragged astir his relation successful overturning Roe v Wade - a ruling that ended the nationwide close to an abortion.

“I volition combat to reconstruct what Donald Trump and his hand-selected Supreme Court justness took distant from the women of America,” Harris said astatine her closing code successful DC past week.

• Follow unrecorded updates
• The shifts that delivered Trump a large win

Her astir almighty advertisements featured women who had suffered nether authorities termination bans - deemed “Trump termination bans” by Harris - including those who said they were denied attraction for miscarriages.

The strategy, it seemed, was to harness the aforesaid enthusiasm for termination entree that drove Democrats’ unexpected occurrence successful the 2022 midterms.

Abortion rights stay broadly fashionable - this Gallup canvass successful May suggested lone 1 successful 10 Americans thought it should beryllium banned.

And adjacent these predetermination results seemed to underline that. Eight retired of the 10 states wherever termination was connected the ballot voted successful favour of termination rights.

But that enactment did not construe into enactment for Harris.

Abortion did substance to women, it conscionable didn’t substance enough, said Evan Ross Smith, a pollster and run consultant.

“Voters - peculiarly the women - who consciousness strongest astir termination are already voting for Democrats,” helium said. But Democrats were incapable to rise the salience of termination for women who didn’t yet spot it arsenic a pressing issue.

“The termination statement did not penetrate astatine each with non-college educated women, did not determination them an inch. And they mislaid crushed with Latinos,” Mr Smith said.

• Results: Who did each authorities ballot for?
• These are the 7 things Trump says helium volition bash arsenic president
• Analysis - Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed campaigner oregon doomed campaign?

For many, the decisive contented proved to beryllium the economy.

In pre-election surveys and preliminary exit data, ostentation and affordability continued to apical lists of voters' concerns. And for these voters, Trump was the overwhelming favourite.

Jennifer Varvar, 51, an autarkic from Grand Junction, Colorado said she had not adjacent considered a ballot for Harris due to the fact that of the fiscal accent she faced implicit the past 4 years.

“For maine and my family, we’re successful a worse presumption present than we ever person been financially. It’s a struggle. I person 3 boys to enactment nutrient connected the array for,” she said. Things had been amended nether Trump, she said, and that’s wherefore she voted for him.

But if sex didn't disagreement the electorate successful the mode immoderate expected, it inactive played a portion successful the Harris defeat, accidental immoderate analysts.

There person been galore explanations offered for Trump’s resounding triumph but for immoderate determination is 1 happening that stands out.

“I bash deliberation that the state is inactive sexist and is not acceptable for a pistillate president,” said Patti Solis Doyle, who managed Hillary Clinton’s 2008 statesmanlike campaign, to Politico.

Unlike Clinton, who explicitly leaned into her sex and the history-making imaginable of her campaign, Harris was noticeably reluctant to bash the same.

There is simply a wide content that the state is much acceptable for a pistillate president present than erstwhile Clinton ran a 2nd clip successful 2016. But it's inactive an unfastened question.

A Reuters/Ipsos canvass successful October suggested 15% of those surveyed would not beryllium capable to ballot for a pistillate president.

And Donald Trump, who doubled down connected masculinity successful this election, whitethorn person played a portion successful exploiting that.

• Trump attempts to woo the manosphere

“He framed being president arsenic being a pugnacious feline successful a unsafe world… helium framed that arsenic the occupation description," said Mr Smith.

“And that’s 1 of the hardest imaginable occupation descriptions for a pistillate to successfully meet, successful the minds of galore Americans.”