Racial-Gender Gaps in the 2024 Election
Continuing our examination of a recent national survey of 4038 registered voters, conducted by The Liberal Patriot and Blueprint with our polling partners at YouGov, interesting racial and gender gaps emerge in attitudes toward Biden and Trump and in terms of perceptions of the economy.
As the chart below highlights, both black men and black women give roughly similar job approval ratings for Joe Biden—73 percent and 75 percent approve, respectively. In contrast, black men are 17 points more likely than black women to approve of the job Donald Trump did when he was president—47 percent and 30 percent, respectively. Conversely, there are no large gaps in job approval ratings for either Biden or Trump among Hispanic men and women.
Turning to the two-way race for president in the chart below, we find similar gaps between black men and women on who they would vote for in 2024. Notably, black men are twice as likely as black women to support Donald Trump—22 percent vs. 10 percent—while nearly three quarters of black women support Joe Biden compared to around two-thirds of black men. Hispanic men are four points more supportive of Trump than are Hispanic women, but roughly equal proportions of both genders back Biden.
Looking at perceptions of economic management, we again see similar patterns among black voters. Black men are twice as likely as black women—26 percent vs. 13 percent—to say that Donald Trump did a better job handling the economy when he was president than Joe Biden has done so far during in his presidency.
Hispanic men and women break evenly on the belief that Trump handled the economy better when he was president (44 percent each) while Hispanic men are seven points more likely than Hispanic women to say Joe Biden has been better on the economy (45 percent and 38 percent, respectively). The differences in attitudes among Hispanic women might be explained by the significant differences in self-reported personal financial situations seen below: nearly six in ten Hispanic women (57 percent) report that their personal finances are poor or very poor these days compared to only 42 percent of Hispanic men.
Combined, these data show us that although Biden currently enjoys substantial leads with black voters overall, black men are twice as likely as black women to support Donald Trump and are generally more favorable about his time in office. Likewise, the fight for Hispanic support remains very close, with neither candidate currently holding majority support among either Hispanic men or women. Contrary to some media reports, our poll also shows that Hispanic women appear to be facing greater economic pressures than Hispanic men and consequently are more likely to favor Trump over Biden in terms of who would be better handling the economy.
These emerging racial-gender dynamics are worth watching as the 2024 race unfolds. In particular, any erosion in black support in key battleground states will clearly hurt Biden’s reelection chances, and these gender differences among black voters could make the difference.