Gadarian Comments on Harris’s Bid for Women Voters in Business Insider Article

September 26, 2024

Business Insider

Shana Kushner Gadarian

Political Science Department

Campbell Public Affairs Institute

Federal

Gender and Sex

Political Parties

U.S. Elections

United States

Business Insider

Shana Kushner Gadarian

With the U.S. election drawing near, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are turning their attention to a few specific voter groups in a number of key swing states that will likely determine who will win.

One group where Harris hopes to make big gains with is women, who tend to register and vote at higher rates than men.

Since President Joe Biden dropped out of the running for the election in late July, a number of polls have shown women leaning increasingly toward the Democrats. And a key area that is closely connected to gender voting patterns is abortion rights.

Harris reshaped the election race by “advocating for women's health, reproductive freedom and abortion access more vocally and more powerfully than Biden did and than the Trump/Vance ticket is,” says Shana Gadarian, Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking.

“She ties access to reproductive care to a theme of progress and freedom in ways that Biden did not,” she adds.