Voting gender gap in the United States

A gender gap in voting typically refers to the difference in the percentage of men and women who vote for a particular candidate. It is calculated by subtracting the percentage of women supporting a candidate from the percentage of men supporting a candidate (e.g., if 55 percent of men support a candidate and 44 percent of women support the same candidate, there is an 11-point gender gap).

The gender gap and the women's vote are distinct concepts. The gender gap refers to between groups differences (i.e., how men and women differ from each other in their support for a candidate). The women’s vote refers to within-groups differences (i.e., the difference in women’s support for leading party’s candidate and trailing party’s candidate). Media reports often conflate the women's vote with the gender gap, inaccurately referring to the women's vote as the gender gap. Gender gaps are not within-the-gender differences in candidate support, nor are they the aggregate total of men's and women's within gender differences (e.g., men +10 Republican and women +12 Democratic is not equivalent to a 22-point gender gap).

There has been a notable gender gap in the United States at least since the 1980 presidential election. Women tend to favor Democratic candidates while men tend to favor Republican ones; the gap has ranged from 11 points in 1996 and 2016 to 4 points in 1992. The gap has been attributed to various causes, including a shifting of loyalty among men to the Republican Party and generally higher support for liberal positions among women. The effect of the gender gap is magnified by the fact that women vote in higher numbers than men.