2024 Elections

Across battlegrounds, there is a 10-point gender gap in early voting so far, according to a POLITICO analysis.

The gender gap has been one of the defining features of the 2024 campaign, and Kamala Harris allies see the lack of a surge of male voters as an encouraging sign. | Allyson Joyce/AFP via Getty Images

By Megan Messerly and Jessica Piper

10/29/2024 06:58 PM EDT

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There’s a new kind of gender gap in the 2024 election: Women are voting early in huge numbers, far outpacing men.

It’s giving anxious Democrats — who see female voters as key to a Kamala Harris victory — newfound hope heading into the final week of the campaign.

Across battlegrounds, there is a 10-point gender gap in early voting so far: Women account for roughly 55 percent of the early vote, while men are around 45 percent, according to a POLITICO analysis of early vote data in several key states. The implications for next week’s election results are unclear; among registered Republicans, women are voting early more than men, too. But the high female turnout is encouraging to Democratic strategists, who expected that a surge in Republican turnout would result in more gender parity among early voters.

It’s impossible to know who these women are voting for, including whether Democrats are winning over unaffiliated or moderate Republican women disillusioned with former President Donald Trump. But the gender gap has been one of the defining features of the 2024 campaign, and Harris allies see the lack of a surge of male voters as an encouraging sign.

“In some states women are actually exceeding their vote share from 2020, which is at this point shocking to me,” said Tom Bonier, a Democratic strategist and CEO of the data firm TargetSmart. “I never would have bet on that.”

Democrats’ burgeoning optimism over female turnout comes as Harris zeroes in on moderate suburban women — and particularly non-college educated, white women — in the final days of the campaign, aiming........

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