Why Men Vote for Republicans, and Women Vote for Democrats

For decades after the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which extended the franchise to women, women voted less frequently than men—and, mostly, for the same candidates. Mid-century politicians and pollsters explained this phenomenon by claiming that most women didn’t care about politics and would always duplicate their husband’s vote, if they showed up to the polls at all. As George Gallup said in 1940 of women: “How will they vote on election day? Just exactly as they were told the night before.”

But in the past 40 years, Gallup’s theory has. That’s equal to the total number of votes cast in the state of Texas in 2016. From an electoral perspective, the United States of Women is larger than the United States of Men by a full Lone Star State. Women aren’t copying men’s ballots, either: Even as men have migrated toward the Republican Party, women have become a dependable force for Democrats.