Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T17:15:13.000Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Did Women Vote for Donald Trump?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2018

Mark Setzler  and
Alixandra B. Yanus
Mark Setzler
Affiliation:
High Point University
Alixandra B. Yanus
Affiliation:
High Point University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Popular accounts of the 2016 presidential election attribute Donald Trump’s victory to the mobilization of angry white men seeking to restore traditional values and social roles. Whereas a majority of Trump voters were male, more than 40% of women who went to the polls on Election Day also supported him. This analysis explores the motivations of these women, asking how partisanship, demographics, and beliefs motivated their vote choice. We found that, although party affiliation was an important predictor of both women’s and men’s vote choice, sexism and racial resentment had a greater influence on voters of both genders. Moreover, the influence of these biases was similar for women and men.

Type
Articles
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 523 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

American National Election Studies (ANES). 2016. Users’ Guide and Codebook for the ANES 2016 Time Series Study. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Cassese, Erin C., and Holman, Mirya R.. 2016. “Religious Beliefs, Gender Consciousness, and Women’s Political Participation.” Sex Roles 75 (9/10): 514–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Confessore, Nicholas, and Cohn, Nate. 2016. “Donald Trump’s Victory Was Built on Unique Coalition of White Voters.” New York Times, November 9. Available at www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/donald-trump-voters.html?_r=0. Accessed March 23, 2017.Google Scholar
Dolan, Kathleen A. 2014. “Gender Stereotypes, Candidate Evaluations, and Voting for Women Candidates: What Really Matters?” Political Research Quarterly 67 (1): 96–107.Google Scholar
Elder, Laurel. 2008. “Whither Republican Women: The Growing Partisan Gap among Women in Congress.” Forum 6 (1): np.Google Scholar
Feldman, Stanley, and Stenner, Karen. 1997. “Perceived Threat and Authoritarianism.” Political Psychology 18 (4): 741–70.Google Scholar
Filindra, Alexandra, and Kaplan, Noah J.. 2016. “Racial Resentment and Whites’ Gun Policy Preferences in Contemporary America.” Political Behavior 38 (2): 255–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Spencer. 2016a. “Factors Predicting Support of Trump vs. Clinton.” ClearerThinking.Org, November 2. Available at http://programs.clearerthinking.org/trump_clinton/trump_clinton_analysis.htm. Accessed February 2, 2017.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Spencer. 2016b. “One Important Difference Between Clinton & Trump Voters: How They Perceive Honesty.” ClearerThinking.Org, November 2. Available at www.clearerthinking.org/single-post/2016/11/02/One-important-difference-between-Clinton-Trump-voters-how-they-perceive-honesty. Accessed February 2, 2017.Google Scholar
Hayes, Danny. 2011. “When Gender and Party Collide: Stereotyping in Candidate Trait Attribution.” Politics & Gender 7: 133–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hetherington, Marc, and Suhay, Elizabeth. 2011. “Authoritarianism, Threat, and Americans’ Support for the War on Terror.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (3): 546–60.Google Scholar
Hetherington, Marc J., and Weiler, Jonathan D.. 2009. Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jabour, Anya. 2016. “Clinton’s Historic Gender Gap: Exploring 100 Years of the ‘Woman Vote.’” Newsweek, November 16. Available at www.newsweek.com/clinton-gender-gap-100-years-suffrage-525272. Accessed April 12, 2017.Google Scholar
Kauffman, Karen M., and Petrocik, John R.. 1999. “The Changing Politics of American Men: Understanding the Sources of the Gender Gap.” American Journal of Political Science 43 (3): 864–87.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., and Sanders, Lynn M.. 1996. Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Knuckey, Jonathan, and Kim, Myunghee. 2015. “Racial Resentment, Old-Fashioned Racism, and the Vote Choice of Southern and Non-Southern Whites in the 2012 US Presidential Election.” Social Science Quarterly 96 (4): 905–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWilliams, Matthew C. 2016a. “The One Weird Trait that Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter.” Politico, January 17. Available at http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533. Accessed March 22, 2017.Google Scholar
MacWilliams, Matthew C. 2016b. “Who Decides When the Party Doesn’t? Authoritarian Voters and the Rise of Donald Trump.” PS: Political Science & Politics 49 (4): 716–21.Google Scholar
Malone, Claire. 2016. “Clinton Couldn’t Win over White Women.” FiveThirtyEight, November 9. Available at https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-couldnt-win-over-white-women. Accessed April 12, 2017.Google Scholar
McThomas, Mary, and Tesler, Michael. 2016. “The Growing Influence of Gender Attitudes on Public Support for Hillary Clinton, 2008–2012.” Politics & Gender 12 (1): 28–49.Google Scholar
Schaffner, Brian F., MacWilliams, Matthew, and Nteta, Tatishe. 2017. “Explaining White Polarization in the 2016 Vote for President: The Sobering Role of Racism and Sexism.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Schreiber, Ronnee. 2012. Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tesler, Michael. 2012. “The Spillover of Racialization into Health Care: How President Obama Polarized Public Opinion by Racial Attitudes and Race.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (3): 690–704.Google Scholar
Winter, Nicholas J. G. 2010. “Masculine Republicans and Feminine Democrats: Gender and Americans’ Explicit and Implicit Images of the Political Parties.” Political Behavior 32 (4): 587–618.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Setzler and Yanus supplementary material 1

Appendix

Download Setzler and Yanus supplementary material 1(PDF)
PDF 140.7 KB