Leading up to the 2024 election, pundits, pollsters, and political operatives discussed the electorate as a bundle of distinct race and gender categories, sometimes with even narrower subcategorizations attached. How would black women vote? What about Latino men? Suburban, college-educated women?
Some of this was useful for analyzing electoral subgroups. But the assumption, especially in left-friendly outlets, was that the best way to win over specific demographic categories was to target them with direct race- and gender-based appeals. Democrats seemed to engage in this practice reflexively, dividing themselves into semi-ironic groups such as White Dudes for Harris.
