Less than two days after effectively securing the Democratic presidential nomination this week, Vice President Kamala Harris was introduced to a crowd of 6,000 Black women, all dressed in the colors of their sorority, as “America’s No. 1 Lady.”
“When I was a United States senator, I would watch this group of powerful leaders walk the halls of Congress dressed in white and blue,” Harris said at the Zeta Phi Beta national meeting in Indianapolis. “I always knew I was watching some of the most powerful advocates for justice in America.”
That night, former President Trump’s rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, was filled with testosterone, as he reminisced about “The Hulkster” and Kid Rock speaking at his party’s convention and the night he outran the bullets “flying” toward him during this month’s assassination attempt.
“They said, ‘Sir, we have a stretcher for you,’” Trump said. “I said, ‘It’s not going to look very good if they take me out on a stretcher.’”
With less than a week to go until a rewritten general election, it is clear that the race between Trump and Harris is not just about a man versus a woman, but about competing notions of gender roles.
Trump has built his image on a hypermasculinity that comes from an era when men sought to portray themselves as physically strong and could dismiss accusations of sexual assault by saying, “She’s not my type,” as he did before losing a civil case against E. Jean Carroll. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White praised Trump’s toughness when delivering his convention speech last week.
Harris has accomplished several firsts in an era when women could redefine power in terms of women's dress, while also adding issues like maternal health and reproductive rights to the national agenda. She has made her mark on the Biden administration by leading the fight to restore abortion rights and continued to push that message during her appearances this week.
In a historic coincidence, Trump not only faced the first woman to lead a presidential ticket, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but now faces the second.
Clinton took on the role of glass ceiling breaker in 2016 but ultimately lost to Trump, who had no qualms about physically blocking her during a debate. Harris is eager to erase that history and mocked Trump on Thursday by accusing him of “backpedaling” after he refused to accept a Sept. 10 debate engagement that was originally scheduled with President Biden.
Trump sounded annoyed by the enthusiasm around Harris as he sought to disparage her during Wednesday's rally by portraying her as a liberal lightweight.
“Putin laughed at her like she was nothing,” he said of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has often praised.
“I have never seen a change like this,” he added, blaming the media for the hype. “Three or four weeks ago she was the worst politician in America. Now they say, 'Isn't she incredible? Look at her. She's so beautiful.'”
The size of the gap between male and female voters will likely determine the election. Trump beat Clinton among men (52% to 41%) while Clinton won the female vote (54% to 39%) in 2016. Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump’s margins among working-class men helped him defeat Clinton by small margins in several key states, where he was unable to make up enough ground with college-educated women.
The candidates narrowed the gender gap in 2020, with Biden winning among women 55% to 44% and Trump winning only among men 50% to 48%, according to Pew's post-election analysis.
A New York Times-Siena poll released Thursday shows Harris within a percentage point of Trump among likely voters, with a 15-point lead over women but a 16-point lead over men against Trump. The wider margins are closer to, but not identical to, those of the 2016 election. The electorate has changed, too: Women outnumbered men in the college-educated workforce for the first time in 2019 and continued to do so through the pandemic, according to Pew.
Sen. Laphonza Butler, a Los Angeles Democrat and longtime Harris political ally, cautioned against comparing Harris’ race to Clinton’s or defining the election by gender, arguing that Harris is building a broad coalition that includes Black women, Latinas, the LGBTQ+ community, as well as men.
“We are where we are in 2024, not 2016,” said Butler, who led the women's political group Emily's List before being appointed to the Senate last year.
The 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned abortion rights affects both men and women, as does the pandemic, Butler said.
“We’ve seen our children struggle to get back on their feet, which affects mothers and fathers,” she said. “So to make a gender story, or to try to minimize in any way, I think, the totality of what is going to go into winning this election, even if it’s going to be close, is not telling the whole story.”
That hasn’t stopped Harris from working hard to champion her vision of female empowerment. Her first official campaign video, released Thursday, used Beyoncé’s anthem “Freedom,” which she also plays at campaign events. In the video and speeches this week, Harris has put “freedom to make choices about your own body” at the center of her message, along with gun violence, health care, child poverty and Trump’s legal troubles.
“Right now, we are in a fight for our most fundamental freedoms,” she said at an American Federation of Teachers convention in Houston on Thursday. “And to this room of leaders I say: Go!”
So far, Harris’ message seems to be especially resonating with women, who have packed online events this week. Rochelle Allen said Harris is “our only hope right now” as she looked forward to her speech in Houston.
But the 74-year-old from Detroit, who teaches at Wayne State University, is also concerned and would have preferred Biden to stay in the race. She came of age when women were taught to put men first and allow them to lead, including at her church where she now serves as pastor, she said.
“There are people who simply will not vote for a woman to be a leader. That is backward thinking, but it is the truth,” she said. “That is why it is really important for everyone else to get out and vote.”
