‘Many Women Are Rising’: Harris’ Hopes Depend on Women’s Vote

In states like Arizona and Michigan, young women are lining up to vote early. Kamala Harris hopes that they will decide the outcome of the election for her.

On an unusually warm fall morning on the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus, dozens of students stood in line to vote at the university’s early voting center.

Among them was Keeley Ganong, a third-year student who happily voted for Harris.

“She’s just a leader that I would look up to to represent my country,” she said.

“Gender equality is at the forefront of issues,” said her friend Lola Nordlinger, referring to abortion rights. “A woman’s choice is something personal to her and it shouldn’t really be anyone else’s decision.”

Ms. Ganong said everyone on campus is talking about voting less than a week before Election Day.

“Student votes will definitely matter” in the election, the 20-year-old said.

Adrianna Peete, a 24-year-old who has volunteered to teach students about the democratic process on campus, agrees:

“I feel like a lot of women are rising up,” she said.

These young women are in many ways typical Harris voters. According to a recent Harvard Institute of Politics poll, Harris leads among women ages 18 to 29 by a whopping 30 points. She leads college students of any gender with 38 points, according to a recent Inside Higher Ed/Generation Lab poll.

As the polls go head-to-head both nationally and in states like Michigan, Harris will be counting on these young women to turn out in large numbers and win the election.

That’s not lost on Hannah Brox, 20, who stood in a long line to attend a packed Harris-Walz rally in Ann Arbor at a local park last week. She was involved in her school’s Young Democrats club, knocking on doors, sending out fliers and making phone calls, trying to convince people to vote for Harris.

“I just love the way she talks about people in general,” Ms. Brox said. “There is so much love and compassion in the way she talks about other people.”

That advantage among young women could be even greater if voter turnout in this election is similar to 2020, when about 10 million more women than men voted, according to the Center for American Women in Politics.

Exit polls from early voting this time show a similar picture: about 55% women and 45% men, according to a Politico analysis, although analysts warn we have no idea who those women voted for.

But while much has been said about how this election will be boys versus girls, the reality is much more complex. In the same Harvard poll, Harris’ lead among white women under 30 was 13 points higher than Trump’s, compared with a 55-point lead among nonwhite women under 30.

When white women of all ages are polled, Harris’ lead virtually disappears. History may repeat itself: In 2016, more white women supported Trump than Hillary Clinton. Trump’s lead among white women widened in 2020.

Democrats as a whole have a particularly tough time with white, non-college-educated voters, men and women. If Harris wants to win, she will not only have to get a strong turnout among the young women who support her, but also convince some women who may not fit the mold.

“The best avatar for the overall voter is a woman from a swing state who didn’t go to college,” says pollster Evan Roth Smith of Blueprint, a Democratic polling company.

While these women seem to trust the Republican Party more on issues like immigration and the economy, Mr. Smith says abortion could be the issue that turns them toward Harris.

The vice president has vowed to restore abortion rights, and Trump has taken credit for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which previously guaranteed women a national right to an abortion.

Women at Harris’ rally in the battleground state of Arizona told the BBC the stakes seemed particularly high this year. There is a question on the state ballot that will allow voters to decide whether abortion rights should be enshrined in the state constitution. Abortion is currently illegal after 15 weeks, with some exceptions.

Mary Jelkowski hopes that putting abortion on the ballot here in Arizona can help bring a blue wave.

Wearing a bright blue sweatshirt with the slogan “Vote with your vagina”, the 26-year-old told the BBC she and her husband had started trying to get pregnant.

She says the idea that this could be forced on someone now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned was hard for her to accept.

Ms Zhelkovskaya says the Supreme Court decision has started important conversations with her friends and family. She says she learned that several of her loved ones had abortions, including one to save a life.

“It’s personal, but it’s important to have these conversations,” she says. “For us (women), this election couldn’t be more important.”

Harris’ campaign hopes the abortion issue will not only inspire Democrats to get to the polls, but also convince Republican women to switch sides. These “silent” Harris voters, as political analysts like to call them, could help boost her numbers in particularly tight races.

Rebecca Gow, 53, of Arizona, was a lifelong Republican until Trump ran for president. When she cast her vote for Joe Biden in 2020, she said it was a protest vote. But this time, she says she’s thrilled to vote for Harris.

“I felt she could present me as a down-to-earth American woman,” she told the BBC earlier in October.

She said she’s tired of “toxic masculinity” and thinks other Republican women like her feel the same way.

“I don’t care about political beliefs – women are fed up,” she said.

But not all Republican women are convinced. Tracey Sorrell, a Texan who sits on the BBC’s electorate panel, said she believed Harris would go too far on abortion rights. Ultimately, although she doesn’t like some of what he says, Ms. Sorrell said she would vote for Trump.

“I don’t vote for an individual. I vote for politics. I don’t have to marry this person,” she said.

With additional reporting by Robin Levinson King and Rachel Luker.