Hispanic men were more likely than their female counterparts to vote for former President Donald Trump. This November, experts expect that gap to increase, perhaps for one specific reason— education.
Exit polling in the 2020 presidential election found that 36% of Hispanic men voted for Trump compared to 30% of Hispanic women. Now, recent polls show that gap to be growing. For instance, one survey from Univision and YouGov released earlier this month foundTrump's support among Hispanic men at 44%.
That divide is mostly highlighted among younger, U.S.-born Hispanic men, who tend to be less attached to their Latino heritage and more likely to share the political priorities of non-Hispanic, white working-class voters, The Miami Herald reports.
"For first-generation or even for second-generation voters, Latino ethnic identity was the predominant lens that these people were voting through. They were voting as Latinos, they were voting as non-whites," Mike Madrid, a former Republican strategist and expert on Latino voters said. "What's created this rightward shift, as we're calling it, is a function of U.S. born Hispanic males increasingly voting Republican."
Madrid dismissed machismo culture as the main catalyst for this voting disparity. Instead, he pointed to education levels as the reason to be looking at.
The number of Latina students pursuing a bachelor's degree or higher rose from 1 million in 2000 to over 3.5 million in 2021, and in the same time frame, the percentage of degree-holding Latinas quadrupled from a meager 5% to 20%, NBC News reported earlier this year.
The relationship between education and partisanship has become increasingly apparent in the past couple of years.
For instance, the Republican party now holds a 6 percentage point advantage over the Democratic party (51% to 45%) among voters who do not have a bachelor's degree. Voters who do not have a four-year degree make up a 60% majority of all registered voters, according to a Pew Research Center study from earlier this year.
By comparison, the Democratic Party has a 13-point advantage (55% to 42%) among those with a bachelor's degree or more formal education.
Eduardo Gamarra, a political science professor at Florida International University, said the gap between Latino men and women is important. According to polling he conducted in early July— before President Joe Biden bowed out of the race— nearly 62% of women polled had a "very unfavorable" or "somewhat unfavorable" opinion of Donald Trump; while 27% said they would vote for him, compared to 39% of men.
He also said the gender divide was most pronounced on abortion, and that it may become more pronounced as November approaches.
"The gender gap might grow as the election advances and Trump attacks Kamala in a personal way, and in great measure through the lens of gender," he said. "Many people are perceiving an attack towards gender, and that's something that could be exacerbated in the coming months."
The Miami Herald's analysis comes as other polls show the Vice President gaining a sizable jump among women. She now leads Trump 54% to 41% among that group. Before last month's Democratic National Convention, Harris edged Trump by six percentage points.
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