Originally published by The 19th.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ potentially history-making bid to become the first woman in the White House did little to bring more women voters into the Democratic Party during the first presidential election after the loss of federal abortion rights, with seemingly one exception: women over 65.
These women were motivated by the same issues that were important to the overall electorate, like the economy, threats to democracy, immigration and abortion, something central to Harris’ failed bid for the presidency. They were, however, more likely to name priorities like caregiving, aging in place and preserving the government retirement savings program Social Security as decisive factors, according to an AARP analysis of an AP VoteCast survey of 120,000 registered voters.
The specific priorities of women over 65 could explain why they voted for Harris at higher rates than men their age and moved more in Harris’ direction than younger women.
“Social Security … is not an issue that people said was either first or second most important, but 70 percent of voters said that Social Security was an extremely or very important issue in their vote, and it was slightly higher among voters who voted Democratic,” Jeff Liszt, a partner at Impact Research, a Democratic polling firm, said during a post-election briefing hosted by the AARP.
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“And then voters 50+? Eighty percent of voters 50+ said that Social Security was extremely or very important in their vote,” he continued.
Across gender, age and race, the electorate largely moved away from Democrats this year and the shift typically, though not always, benefited Republican President-elect Donald Trump. This happened even as a record-breaking percentage of voters said that abortion was their top issue and majorities of the electorate across all demographic groups said they trusted Democrats to better handle it.
Trump picked up support despite his role cementing the conservative Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade, the dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct against him and his conviction last year for sexual abuse. He received more support from women across all age groups compared to 2020, except for those 65 and older, who swung in Harris’ favor by several points: 54 percent of them backed Harris while her support from men of the same age group was 44 percent, according to CNN exit polls.
A main takeaway this year is that a gender gap that many political experts predicted could be historic did not materialize, in part because the share of the women’s electorate that Harris won decreased across all age groups, except for women over 65.
A gender gap has existed in every presidential election since 1980, with more women supporting the Democratic candidate. This year, it was smaller than in the past two elections. Trump competed in both — winning the first, losing the second — though each occurred before Roe was overturned and the former president’s sexual abuse conviction. He has also since been convicted of 34 felonies related to falsifying business records to obscure payments to an adult film star during his first campaign.
The gender gap is typically considered the difference between the proportions of men and women who supported the winning candidate. In 2024, there was a 10-point gender gap. In 2020, there was a 12-point gender gap. In 2016, there was a 11-point gender gap, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
A smaller proportion of women overall backed Harris this year than did President Joe Biden in 2020, with 53 percent voting for her; 45 percent cast ballots for Trump, according to a CNN analysis of exit polls, an imperfect science that nonetheless provides an initial look at the electorate. The same exit polls from the 2020 election indicated that 57 percent of women backed Biden and 42 percent backed Trump.
The CNN exit polls indicated that Harris lost support across all other age groups of women this year. The drop ranged from two points among 30- to 44-year-old women to seven points among 45- to 64-year-old women..
But women and men 65+ moved roughly equal amounts in favor of Harris as compared to 2020 — and women in this age cohort remained more likely than men to support the Democratic nominee.
Liszt participated in the briefing hosted by the AARP, along with Bob Ward, a partner at Fabrizio Ward, a Republican polling firm. The two pollsters analyzed AP VoteCast data across 43 of the most competitive U.S. House districts, most of which were also in presidential battleground states. As they layered gender across age and race, a fuller picture started to come into focus about why women 65 and older in these key areas seem to have defied the ideological shifts seen across other demographic groups.
The AARP analysis showed that abortion and immigration were the top issues overall that determined candidate choices this year, with about one in four voters naming each as the decisive factor. The economy and jobs ranked at a close second, though it became the top issue overall when expanded to include inflation and Social Security in the broader category of “personal economic issues.”
Voters 65 and older were also far more likely than those in other age groups to say “protecting democracy” was at least a “very important” issue to them. About 90 percent of 50+ women said that protecting democracy was very important, compared to 79 percent of men.
While women over 50 were less likely than men the same age to name “personal economic issues” as the most determinative, more of them specifically picked Social Security. Women in this age group preferred Democrats’ approach, with 59 percent of them reporting that Social Security is or is expected to be a “major source” of income for their household. Fifty-one percent of men the same age said the same, the AARP analysis showed.
The biggest gender gaps in 50+ voters were on the issues of abortion and immigration, with women prioritizing the former and men the latter, the pollsters said.
Voters caring for an elderly, ill or disabled adult were more likely to vote for Harris and more women than men over 65 reported being a caregiver. Women over 50 were also 10 points more likely than men to say they trusted Democrats more than Republicans to “help seniors live independently.”
AARP’s takeaways are supported by interviews The 19th did with 65+ women ahead of the November elections.
Take Kathryn Engelhard, 69. She said after a mid-October Harris campaign event in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that protecting Social Security was her top concern, followed by health care, specifically the GOP policies related to reproductive rights and abortion.
Sue Shomsky, a 70-year-old Michigan voter who backed Harris, said she was inspired to put up yard signs and go door-knocking for the first time this year because of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which she saw as a threat to democracy, as well as Republican abortion policies, which she considers a threat to her grandchildren.
“You know, after January 6, I said: ‘My God, we cannot let this man get back in the White House.’ I’m going to do everything I can to protect the rights of my daughter and my granddaughters. Whatever it takes, I’m willing to do it,” Shomsky told The 19th in late October.
The AARP analysis was based on AP VoteCast, which surveys more than 120,000 registered voters across all states and is conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for Fox News, PBS NewsHour, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. These interviews, conducted in English and Spanish, took place in the final week before Election Day and reflect responses from registered voters who cast ballots in person, early, absentee, by mail or decided not to vote. It is a more expansive survey than the exit polls analyzed by CNN, which were compiled by doing voluntary interviews with about 23,000 voters.
