TITLE:
Gender and the 2018 U.S. Congressional Election
AUTHORS:
James DeFronzo, Jungyun Gill
KEYWORDS:
Gender Gap, Voting Choice, Party Affiliation, Attitude Towards President, Gender Related Social Issues
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.12 No.4,
August
17,
2022
ABSTRACT:
Nationally in the U.S.
women started to identify more than men with the Democratic Party than the
Republican Party in the 1960s and began to vote consistently more often than
men for a Democratic rather than Republican presidential candidate beginning in
1980. The suspected causes of this political gender gap have tended to vary
with shifting social and political contexts. One relative constant has been
women’s greater preference for candidates who have expressed support for
policies and legislation viewed as promoting economic justice. The current
study employs regression analyses of data from online interviews of 1228 voters
in five Midwestern states, three of which were won by the Republican candidate
for president in 2016 and two by the Democratic candidate, to gauge the
relative importance of several factors on gender gaps regarding party
preference, opinion on then President Donald Trump, and voter choice in the
2018 Congressional Election. The results suggest that differences between
women’s and men’s views on gun control, immigration, economic justice,
religious diversity, and criminal justice reform largely accounted for the
political gender gaps.