Beyond abortion rights: Why did Kamala Harris lose women’s votes?

Donald Trump's defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential election has signalled women's rights – specifically the right to an abortion – was less of a key issue than expected for voters.

This was the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade court ruling, which ended a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy. Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for that 2022 verdict, which was made possible by his appointments of three conservative judges to the top court.

The Harris campaign made much of Trump's stance on reproductive rights in a bid to woo female voters, particularly in the swing states. However, early national exit polls showed that Harris had won the support of 54 percent of women, lower than President Joe Biden did in 2020 when he had the support of 57 percent.

So what happened to the female vote?

Why was abortion expected to be significant in this election?

The Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade in June 2022 was a huge turning point for women's reproductive rights in the US and sparked a massive backlash from women's rights and medical groups.

Overturning Roe had been a key campaign promise that Trump successfully contested the 2016 election on.

In light of the uproar over the Supreme Court's ruling, Democrats expected the issue to loom large this election, and Harris shaped much of her campaign around it.

Harris's campaign focused on highlighting statements Trump has made about abortion.

For example, one advert that the Harris campaign ran close to the polls was titled Punishment, referencing a statement by Trump before the 2016 election in which he suggested women who try to obtain abortions should be punished.

However, in 2016, Trump moved back from this position, clarifying that any punishment would be for doctors performing the procedure, not women undergoing it.

On October 29 this year, Harris stated that Trump would "force states to monitor women's pregnancies". She urged listeners to "Google Project 2025 and read the plans for yourself", referring to a conservative policy blueprint assembled by some of Trump's supporters but which Trump has distanced himself from.

This claim by Harris was deemed false by PolitiFact , a fact-checking outlet.

Ultimately, while it is true that Trump and his Republican aides have been called out for making sexist remarks about women, Trump made up for it by strategically distancing himself from the notion of a federal abortion ban in the run-up to this election, stating he believed it should be for individual states to decide on laws about abortion.

Instead, he focused on rallying support among the working class by focusing on economic policy as the main thrust of his campaign.

Trump's running mate, JD Vance , in 2022 said he supported a nationwide abortion ban. However, in July this year, Vance said he was aligned with Trump on the idea that abortion should be an issue that each state deals with.

If not abortion, what were women concerned with this election?

According to a survey of female voters conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and published on October 11, the top issue that emerged for women voters overall was inflation, including rising household expenses. More than one-third (36 percent) of respondents cited it as the most important issue.

This was followed by threats to democracy, which 24 percent of respondents cited, and immigration and border security, which 13 percent of women cited. The same number – 13 percent – cited abortion as the most important issue.

The national exit polls were consistent with this.

According to a preliminary national exit poll conducted by data provider Edison Research, 31 percent of voters said the economy mattered most in shaping their decision to vote whereas 14 percent cited abortion.

How did women vote in this election?

Women did vote for Harris but by a smaller margin than they did for Democrats in previous elections – for Biden in 2020 and for Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016.

CNN's exit polls found that Harris won female voters' support by 10 percentage points over Trump. But in 2020, Biden won their support by 15 percentage points, and in 2016, Clinton did by 13 percentage points.

While Harris made slight inroads with white female voters, Trump still won them by 8 percentage points. Historically, white women have voted for the Republican candidate.

According to the CNN polls, Harris also won 92 percent of the votes of Black women , compared with Trump's 8 percent. This was up from Biden's 90.5 percent vote share in 2020.

However, the Democrats lost support among Latina women this time. Harris won 61 percent of their votes this election – 22 percentage points above Trump. But this margin was markedly lower than the 39-point lead Biden had over Trump with Latina women in 2020.

What did Harris do wrong and Trump do right? Harris focused too much on abortion rather than more salient issues, such as economic policies, that would appeal to working class voters, including women, David Schultz, an author and political science professor at Minnesota's Hamline University, told Al Jazeera.

Voters had more confidence in Trump's ability to handle the economy, and the Republican candidate ostensibly was better at persuading working class and middle class voters on his economic policies. Harris on the other hand, appealed more to college-educated, upper middle class voters.

White women with college degrees tended to vote for Harris this election – 53.5 percent did so – while 64 percent of white women without degrees voted for Trump, according to a CNN poll.

"The Harris campaign did not necessarily do a good job of explaining how her policies would help the middle class, or at least that message wasn't really resonating with a lot of voters," Melissa Deckman, a political scientist and the CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, told the Reuters news agency.

Schultz added that this caused Harris to lose critical battleground states that had consistently voted for Democrats before 2016. "Harris lost Wisconsin because she lost the working class and did not win women, suburbs and young voters," he said.

An early national exit poll showed that 51 percent of voters trusted Trump with handling the economy compared with the 47 percent who trusted Harris.

An analysis by the Washington, DC-based Brookings Institution think tank also found Harris had inherited America's disapproval of Biden, which has grown during his presidency because of economic dissatisfaction. Americans were particularly displeased with Biden's handling of inflation, according to polls compiled by the FiveThirtyEight website. Since Biden came to power, consumer prices have risen by more than 19 percent .

The Brookings analysis also indicated Harris made some wrong tactical choices. For example, her decision to avoid media interviews when she first appeared on the Democratic ticket led to voters losing confidence in her ability to think on her feet, Brookings said.

Deckman added that Harris's choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice presidential running mate over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was another of "several mistakes" made by the Democrats in the run-up to this election. This is because Walz did not help Harris sway any swing states. Minnesota has voted Democratic in every single presidential election since 1976.

Is the right to abortion in danger in the US under Trump?

Once Trump takes power in January, a nationwide abortion ban seems unlikely, but states may restrict abortion.

Before this year's election, Trump said he would veto any federal abortion ban because he believes abortion is an issue that should be left to each state.

As of this week, abortion is banned in 13 states under almost all circumstances. In an additional four states, abortion is banned past six weeks of pregnancy.

Some states place limits at 12 weeks, 15 weeks or 18 weeks or have longer gestational limits. Nine states and the District of Columbia place no restrictions on abortion.

On Tuesday, 10 states voted on whether to embed the right to abortion in their constitutions. These measures were brought to the ballot by abortion rights groups.

Seven states passed the abortion rights amendments, paving the way for abortion restrictions to be lifted in Missouri, where abortion was banned under any circumstances except medical emergencies, and Arizona, where abortions were banned past 15 weeks. These restrictions will be lifted in the coming weeks.

The measures also passed in Colorado, New York, Maryland, Montana and Nevada, where abortion is legal but now this will be enshrined in their state constitutions.

Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota failed to pass their own amendments, and their bans remain. Florida bans abortions past six weeks of pregnancy, Nebraska bans them past 12 weeks and South Dakota bans them in almost all circumstances.