Will the unsurprising yet significant fact that Kamala Harris is a woman decisively tip the knife-edge US election in Donald Trump’s favour? Democrat jitters grow as the campaign enters its final two weeks. Polls predict a dead heat nationally. Trump is edging ahead in key battleground states. Misogyny, hidden and pernicious, may make a crucial difference.
It’s frankly incredible that Trump, a convicted crook, cheat and sexual predator, is still in the race – and alarming that likeable, uninspiring Harris has not already sewn it up. Each day brings more wild Trump bombast about mass deportations, “enemies within” or pet-eating Haitians. His lies and threats explode like cluster bombs. He behaves like a fool.
Yet Trump has traction. Voters generally rate Republicans more highly on core issues: the economy, inflation, borders, crime, global insecurity. That doesn’t necessarily translate into a Trump win. Most Americans view him unfavourably. But Harris, hamstrung by Joe Biden’s unpopular legacy and a paucity of eye-catching policy ideas, looks vulnerable.
One issue that could ultimately swing this tightest of tight races is rarely mentioned by either candidate: gender. Unlike Hillary Clinton, the misogynists’ favourite 2016 target, Harris has downplayed the potentially historic nature of her candidacy. But derogatory, demeaning sexism remains a factor.
“Women – and women candidates – are subject to toxic and misogynistic standards that are often perpetuated in public and by the media,” the Emily’s List pressure group warned this summer. “Stereotypes and tropes centred around diminishing the qualifications, leadership, looks, relationships and experience of women candidates for office are always part and parcel with her campaign. This is exacerbated for women of color.”
Rather than challenge Harris openly on gender, Trump digs and jibes indirectly, persistently talking about the need for “strength” in leading the country and bashing America’s enemies. “Strength” is his code for “male” or “manly”. His running mate, JD Vance, has cut out the “childless cat lady” talk – but his foul sexism lives on behind glib words. Viewed this way, the election could be said to boil down to a contest between Trump’s “strength” and Harris’s “joy”, her successful campaign motif. It’s Mars against Venus. Or, in its simplest form, man versus woman.
Polls reflect this age-old dichotomy. Men are more likely to back Trump; women lean towards Harris. A recent New York Times-Siena poll put her 16 points ahead of Trump among female voters. NBC gave her a 14-point lead with women. Trump leads by up to 16 points among men.
Harris’s gender may be tacitly affecting or reinforcing attitudes in other voter categories. In the New York Times poll, 60% of white college-educated voters backed Harris, while 63% of white non-college-educated voters backed Trump. Likewise, Trump, who is white, has a significant advantage among white people while Harris, who identifies as black and Asian, leads among non-whites. Yet voters in two other key categories, blacks and Hispanics, are less supportive of Harris than of Biden in 2020, surveys show – a decline partly driven by younger, non-college-educated Hispanic males. Speaking in pivotal Pennsylvania, Barack Obama angrily castigated his black “brothers” for finding “all kinds of excuses” not to support a woman.
The former president’s intervention was clumsy but timely. “The only thing that keeps the Democrats viable is that they have strong support from non-college-educated black and Latino voters but… support from these groups has been eroding,” observed Jeet Heer in The Nation.
There are plenty of additional reasons to worry that Harris, the accidental candidate, is failing to “seal the deal” with voters. After surging in July, her support has largely flatlined – and she has failed to strike a knock-out blow against a glass-jawed opponent who fearfully refuses to debate with her again.
Harris’s national average poll lead remains stuck around 1.5 points, much the same as a month ago. In contrast, Biden led Trump by 10 points at this stage in 2020. By some counts, Trump is leading in the electoral college with a projected 296 votes to 242. And remember: Trump’s support was substantially underestimated in 2016 and 2020.
Harris’s personal style is also under close scrutiny – a sad inevitability, given her sex. Her naturally joyous, positive approach contrasts sharply with Trump’s aggressive, glowering nihilism. She appears charismatic, warm and professional. But opponents and some allies complain she is vague on the issues, does not “look presidential” (more code for “manly”), and has yet to set out her vision for America.
“She generally gives the impression of someone who is either trying to hide her real views or hide the fact that she doesn’t have real views,” conservative pundit Bret Stephens commented. “She also hasn’t really articulated why she wants the job or what she means to do as president, other than to be a kind of consensus seeker.”
Polls are not wholly reliable. In reality, Harris may be doing better than the figures suggest. And a big turnout, especially among women of all backgrounds, could propel her to the White House. Restoring abortion rights, recklessly undermined by Trump, is a potent, galvanising rallying cause. Growing numbers of women say it’s their top issue. They could turn the tables.
A Harris victory is essential. A second Trump term could be catastrophic for America and the world. He is unfit to be president. He belongs in jail, not the Oval Office. Large numbers of voters agree. But is it enough?
The fear remains that unexorcised, unspoken gender bias lurking deep within Middle America’s “silent majority”, plus the chauvinism of male minority voters, will combine with the anachronistic electoral college to overwhelm Harris’s courageous, flawed crusade.
Harris cannot do it alone. For her to win, America’s women must rise to the challenge – and give a long-overdue, richly deserved kicking to the macho president of sleaze.
• Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s Foreign Affairs Commentator
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